Hague convicts Liberia ex-president Taylor of Sierra Leone war crimes

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity by supporting brutal Sierra Leone rebels in return for blood diamonds, Belfast Telegraph reported.

The verdict against the 64-year-old warlord-turned-president was delivered by international judges in The Hague.

Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said prosecutors have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Taylor is "criminally responsible" for aiding and abetting crimes by rebels in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war. Taylor had pleaded not guilty to 11 counts, including murder, rape, terror and conscripting child soldiers.

Taylor stood and showed no emotion as Lussick delivered 11 guilty verdicts. A sentence will be imposed later. He faces a maximum life sentence, to be served in Britain.

Prosecutors alleged Taylor funnelled arms, ammunition and even mining equipment to rebels in return for blood diamonds and power in the volatile West African region.

Taylor said he was innocent victim of neo-colonialism and a political process aimed at preventing him from returning to power in Liberia. In seven months testifying in his own defence, he cast himself as a peacemaker and statesman in West Africa.

But prosecutors dispute that and called two vicious rebel groups Taylor's "proxy army." They were notorious for hacking off limbs of their enemies in what became the signature atrocity of Sierra Leone's bloody civil war.

His trial ended a year ago and judges have been considering their verdicts ever since. Taylor is the first African head of state convicted by an international court.

The only other head of state convicted by an international tribunal was Karl Doenitz, a naval officer who briefly led Germany after Adolf Hitler's suicide, and who faced justice at Nuremberg.