Warlord guilty of war crime atrocities in Africa

International judges in The Hague delivered verdicts against the 64-year-old warlord-turned-president yesterday, following his trial which ended a year ago.

Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said prosecutors had proved beyond reasonable doubt he was "criminally responsible" for aiding and abetting crimes by rebels in Sierra Leone’s brutal 11-year civil war.

He had pleaded not guilty to 11 charges, including murder, rape, terror and conscripting child soldiers, but was found guilty on all counts.

About 500,000 people are estimated to have been victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities.

Some of the worst crimes were carried out by gangs of child soldiers, who were fed drugs to desensitise them. The rebel soldiers were notorious for hacking off hands and limbs.

Prosecutors said Taylor was allied with the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in Sierra Leone, responsible for widespread atrocities during the conflict between 1991 and 2002.

Lussick said Taylor, who showed no emotion as the verdicts were delivered, provided arms, ammunition, communications equipment and planning, in return for diamonds from mines under rebel control, calling his support "sustained and significant".

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 16 with sentence to be passed two weeks later. Taylor faces a maximum life imprisonment, to be served in Britain.

Human rights activists hailed the convictions as a watershed moment in the fightto bring national leaders leaders to justice.

It is the first war crimes conviction for a current or former head of state since the Nazi trials at Nuremburg, and Taylor is the first African head of state convicted by an international court,

"Taylor's conviction sends a powerful message that even those in the highest level positions can be held to account for grave crimes," said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.

While judges convicted him of aiding and abetting atrocities by rebels, they cleared him of direct responsibility, saying he had no direct control over the rebels.

Thousands celebrated in Sierra Leone. Officials in the capital Freetown had set up special viewing sites for people to watch the verdict live as it was read. Jusu Jarka, chairman of an association for amputees who lost both of his arms during the fighting in 1999, was among those watching. “I am happy that the truth has come out ... that Charles Taylor is fully and solely responsible for the crimes committed against the people of Sierra Leone,” he said.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the verdict should serve as a warning to Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of human rights abuses against his own people.

The successful trial was also hailed by former PM Tony Blair, whose decision to send UK troops into Sierra Leone in 2000 is credited with hastening Taylor’s fall from power in Liberia.

The Royal Marine detachment was initially sent to evacuate foreign nationals, but the extension of their mandate to support a UN force helped tip the military balance against the rebels and bring about a ceasefire.

Taylor fell from power in 2003, and fled to Nigeria. He was arrested three years later.

Mr Blair said: “It is not often you get a situation in which the clarity is so obvious. Either you intervened or this country’s democracy was given over to a murderous group of thugs and gangsters. The intervention was successful. The country has been struggling, it is still struggling but it is on its feet and is able to move forward which is a great thing.”

In a message on Twitter, Mr Hague said: “Charles Taylor: justice has been done. Remember his victims, and remind Assad: there is no expiry date for crimes against the innocent.”

In a statement, he added: “This landmark verdict demonstrates that those who have committed the most serious of crimes can and will be held to account for their actions; it demonstrates that the reach of international law is long and not time limited and it demonstrates that heads of state cannot hide behind immunity.”