Taylor found guilty of crimes against humanity

By Peter Opiyo

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first former head of state to be found guilty of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremburg trials of Nazis after World War II.

In a historic verdict on Thursday, the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity in neighbouring Sierra Leone in return for "blood diamonds."

And on the same day the court delivered its verdict, fresh attempts to claw back the cases of four Kenyans charged with crimes against humanity from The Hague began in the regional Parliament based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Former Liberia President Charles Taylor [Photo: Courtesy]

The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) passed a Motion seeking to transfer trials from the International Criminal Court at The Hague to the Arusha-based East African Court of Justice.

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East Africa Community Minister Musa Sirma said the Eala resolution has been dispatched to the chair of the Council of Ministers, and will be part of agenda in the crucial meeting on Saturday.

Thursday’s verdict was significant for outgoing ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, both for its historical significance, and for the criticism directed against him over his failure to get enough convictions during his tenure.

"Today is for the people of Sierra Leone who suffered horribly at the hands of Charles Taylor and his proxy forces," said prosecutor Brenda Hollis.

"This judgement brings some measure of justice to the many thousands of victims who paid a terrible price for Taylor’s crimes."

Prosecutors and defence lawyers said they would study the lengthy judgement to see if there were grounds for appeal.

Slammed conviction

Taylor’s attorney, Courtenay Griffiths, slammed the conviction as based on "tainted and corrupt evidence". He claimed prosecutors paid for some of the evidence.

Griffiths said Taylor took the verdicts in his stride. "Taylor has always been a stoic individual and he continued to display that stoicism," Griffiths told reporters.

Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said the 64-year-old warlord-turned-president provided arms, ammunition, communications equipment and planning to rebels responsible for countless atrocities in the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone civil war and was repaid by the guerrillas in so-called "blood diamonds" mined by slave laborers. Lussick called the support "sustained and significant."

"Mr Taylor, the trial chamber unanimously finds you guilty" of 11 charges, including terror, murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers, Lussick told Taylor.

Taylor stood and showed no emotion as Lussick delivered the guilty verdicts at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Lussick scheduled a sentencing hearing for May 16, and said sentence would be announced two weeks later. Taylor will serve his sentence in Britain.

Sentence

The court does not have maximum sentences or the death penalty. In the past, convicted Sierra Leone rebel leaders have received sentences of up to 52 years.

Human rights activists hailed the convictions as a watershed in the fight against impunity for national leaders responsible for atrocities.

"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.

"Not since Nuremberg has an international or hybrid war crimes court issued a judgment against a current or former head of state. This is a victory for Sierra Leonean victims, and all those seeking justice when the worst abuses are committed."

Thousands of survivors of Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war celebrated after learning of the conviction.

Jusu Jarka, who lost both arms during the fighting in 1999, was among those closely watching the verdict. "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.

Crowds who had gathered in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, sighed with relief when the conviction was announced. While the reaction was subdued, anger was on display on a series of posters. One read: "Shame on you Charles Taylor. Give us your diamonds before going to prison."

Taylor had pleaded not guilty to all counts, claiming in seven months of testimony in his own defense that he was a statesman and peacemaker in West Africa.

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

His lawyer pounced on that finding, saying the judges "rejected large areas of the prosecution theory."

He portrayed Taylor as the leader of a small and impoverished African nation struggling to protect its borders and compared his intervention in Sierra Leone to US support for rebels in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland welcomed the verdict without commenting on Griffiths’ claims.

Nuland called the judgment, "an important step toward delivering justice and accountability for victims, restoring peace and stability in the country and the region."

Griffiths also dismissed evidence given by the most famous prosecution witness – supermodel Naomi Campbell, who told judges she had received diamonds at a function in South Africa, but did not link them to Taylor. Her testimony was "a large, fat, zero," the lawyer said.

The only other head of state convicted by an international court was a Nazi naval commander, Karl Doenitz, who briefly led Germany after Adolf Hitler’s suicide and was convicted by a military tribunal at Nuremberg after World War II.

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo is jailed in The Hague awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed as he attempted to cling to power last year after losing a presidential election.

Indicted

The ICC last year indicted Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi with crimes against humanity as he resorted to murdering and persecuting civilians to put down protests against his regime, but he was captured and killed by rebel fighters before he could face a court of law.

The same court also has indicted Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir on charges including genocide for his regime’s brutal crackdown on rebels in Darfur. Al-Bashir remains at large in his country, which does not recognize the International Criminal Court.

Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in his cell in 2006 before his four-year genocide trial at the UN Yugoslav tribunal could reach a verdict.

But survivors of rebel atrocities in Sierra Leone were only concerned that the leader who fueled a war that tore apart their country had been judged. "The whole world will know today what Charles Taylor did, and we are happy," said Samuel Komba, who survived an attack by rebels who attempted to burn him alive and cut off his hand.