Liberia's jailed ex-President starts appeal at The Hague

PanARMENIAN.Net - Liberia's jailed ex-President Charles Taylor has started his appeal at a UN-backed special court in The Hague, according to BBC News.

Last May, the court sentenced him to 50 years in prison for aiding and abetting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war.

Defense lawyers have called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice" and want the conviction to be quashed. The prosecution, however, wants the sentence extended to 80 years, saying he also gave orders to the rebels.

In the court's original judgment, he was acquitted on these charges, with the judge finding that the prosecution had failed to prove its claims.

Taylor became the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after World War II. Throughout his trial, the former Liberian leader, who was arrested in 2006, maintained his innocence.

Last week Taylor, 64, reportedly wrote to MPs demanding a presidential pension of $25,000 in Liberia. Describing the withholding of his state presidential pension as a "mammoth injustice", Taylor was quoted in the letter as saying that he was entitled to consular access and diplomatic services at The Hague, but he had been "denied that right".

The prosecution addressed the court first on Tuesday, Jan 22.

Taylor's lawyers have filed more than 40 grounds of appeal, arguing that the trial chamber's findings were based on "uncorroborated hearsay evidence".

Prosecutors, meanwhile, are expected to argue that the court made a mistake by convicting Taylor only of aiding and abetting the Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels and their allies, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.

The court was set up in 2002 to try those who bore the greatest responsibility for the war in Sierra Leone in which some 50,000 people were killed. It found Taylor guilty on 11 counts of war crimes, relating to atrocities that included rape and murder, and described by one of the judges as "some of the most heinous crimes in human history".

In return for so-called blood diamonds, Taylor provided arms and both logistical and moral support to Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels - prolonging the conflict and the suffering of the people of Sierra Leone.

Taylor started Liberia's civil war as a warlord in 1989, and was elected president in 1997. He governed for six years before being forced into exile in southern Nigeria. He was arrested in 2006 while trying to flee Nigeria.

The trial was moved to the Netherlands due to concerns that the case might spark fresh instability in Sierra Leone and Liberia.