THE HAGUE — A United Nations-backed court convicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first time a head of state has been found guilty by an international tribunal since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg.
Taylor (64) had been charged with 11 counts of murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery during intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, during which more than 50 000 people were killed.
The first African leader to stand trial for war crimes, Taylor was accused of directing Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in a campaign of terror to plunder Sierra Leone’s diamond mines for profit and weapons trading.
“The accused is criminally responsible . . . for aiding and abetting in the crimes,” Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said as he read out the court’s decision.
Taylor was found guilty of providing weapons, food, medical supplies, fuel and equipment to forces in Sierra Leone which committed atrocities, but not of having ordered or planned the crimes.
“The trial chamber finds the accused cannot be held responsible for ordering the crimes . . . The trial chamber, having already found the accused guilty of aiding and abetting, does not find the accused also instigated these crimes,” the judge said.
The litany of gruesome crimes covered rapes and enslavement, beheadings and disembowellings, amputations and other mutilations carried out by child soldiers notorious for being high on drugs and dressed in fright wigs.
