Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is due to serve his 50 year sentence at a high security prison in Britain. (AFP)
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years on Wednesday for helping Sierra Leonean rebels commit what a court in The Hague called some of the worst war crimes in history.
Taylor, 64, was the first head of state convicted by an international court since the Nazi Nuremberg Nazi trials in 1946 and the sentence set a precedent for the emerging system of international justice.
In an 11-year war that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels murdered, raped and mutilated their way across Liberia’s West African neighbor, helped by Taylor.
In return, he was paid in diamonds mined by slave labor in areas under control of the rebels, who whomalso forced children aged under 15 to fight, the court found.
“He was found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in recorded history,” said the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s presiding judge Richard Lussick, emphasizing that the world was “entering a new era of accountability.”
Taylor, 64, was the first head of state convicted by an international court since the Nazi Nuremberg Nazi trials in 1946 and the sentence set a precedent for the emerging system of international justice.
In an 11-year war that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels murdered, raped and mutilated their way across Liberia’s West African neighbor, helped by Taylor.
In return, he was paid in diamonds mined by slave labor in areas under control of the rebels, who whomalso forced children aged under 15 to fight, the court found.
“He was found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in recorded history,” said the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s presiding judge Richard Lussick, emphasizing that the world was “entering a new era of accountability.”
FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Former Liberian leader Taylor sentenced to 50 years jail by war crimes court
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