Ex-liberian leader
Charles Taylor becomes the first head of state convicted by a world court since the Nuremberg trials.
THE HAGUE – Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted by an international tribunal Thursday of 11 counts of planning, aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during its civil war in the 1990s.
He is the first head of state to be convicted by an international court since the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War.
The ruling, announced by presiding Judge Richard Lussick of Samoa, said Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers.
The court, however, said the prosecution failed to prove that Taylor had direct command responsibility for the atrocities in the indictment.
Taylor, who has maintained his innocence, will be sentenced in the coming weeks. There is no death penalty in international criminal law and any jail term would be served in a British prison.
The conflict in Sierra Leone became notorious because of its gruesome tactics, including the calculated mutilation of thousands of civilians, the widespread use of drugged child soldiers and the mining of diamonds to pay for guns and ammunition.
A new, sinister rebel vocabulary pointed to the horrors: applying “a smile” meant cutting off the upper and lower lips of a victim;
The trial has brought “a sense of relief.”
IBRAHIM TOMMY
giving “long sleeves” meant hacking off the hands; and giving “short sleeves” meant cutting the arm above the elbow.
The trial has brought “a sense of relief,” said Ibrahim Tommy, who leads the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, a rights group in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, “but I’m not sure it will bring closure to the victims.”
Even so, Tommy said, the trial was “a genuine effort to ensure accountability for the crimes in Sierra Leone.”
In Liberia, Taylor’s supporters have maintained that he is the victim of an American witch hunt, but others lament that his former associates have prospered and play a role in the new government.
The tribunal, called Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has its main seat in Freetown, has already sentenced eight other leading members from different forces and rebel groups for crimes in Sierra Leone.
Largely an initiative of the United States and Britain, the court was established in 2002 in partnership between the United Nations and Sierra Leone to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in a conflict that led almost half the population to flee and left an estimated 50,000 dead.
The fighting for control, over one of the world’s poorest regions, also involved Liberia, where many more died, and threatened to spill over into neighbouring Guinea and Ivory Coast.
But only crimes in Sierra Leone between 1996 and 2002 are within the court’s mandate, and Taylor is the special court’s last defendant. His trial was moved here, to The Hague, for fear of causing unrest in the region where he still has followers.
Not since Karl Doenitz, the German admiral who briefly succeeded Hitler upon his death, was tried and sentenced by the International Military Tribunal, has a head of state been convicted by an international court.
Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia, died in his cell before his war crimes trial ended.
Jean Kambanda, the first person sentenced for the crime of genocide, received a life sentence for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, but he was a former prime minister, not the head of state.
The former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, but his trial has not yet begun.
Similarly, President Omar Bashir is wanted by the court on genocide charges for atrocities in Darfur, but he has long evaded trial.
During Taylor’s lengthy trial, which began in 2006, judges from Ireland, Samoa and Uganda heard testimony from 115 witnesses, many from the region who had never travelled before.