Sierra Leone court finds Charles Taylor guilty

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding, abetting and planning serious crimes after a five year trial. Taylor is the first former head of state to be found guilty by an international court since the Nuremberg trials sentenced Karl Doenitz to 10 years imprisonment in 1946. The trial was significant as Taylor failed to quash the charges on the basis he was head of state at the time of the indictment. 

Charles Ghankay Taylor, the former President of Liberia, faced three charges over a period from 1996 to 2002 crimes against humanity including murder, rape and enslavement, violation of the Geneva Conventions including violence, terrorism and pillage, and other serious violation of international humanitarian law including use of child soldiers.

Taylor was secretly indicted on 7 March 2003. The indictment was made public three months later on his first trip outside of Liberia. He resigned in August and went into exile in Nigeria. He was transferred to the Special Court three years later. Due to security concerns about holding the trial in Sierra Leone, the Special Court arranged for the trial to be held at the ICC offices in The Hague. The trial began in June 2007, but Taylor boycotted proceedings and demanded a new legal team. The prosecution finally opened in January 2008 and took 13 months to get testimony from 91 witnesses. After a delay while an acquit notice was thrown out, the defence opened in July 2009 and took 16 months to collect testimony from 20 witnesses including Taylor.

Taylor studied in America where he protested against then leader William Tolbert in 1979. He supported the Samuel Doe coup a year later and was appointed to Doe’s government. He fled Liberia after embezzling a million dollars but was arrested in the US on another embezzlement charge.  He escaped prison though there is strong evidence he was assisted by the CIA who used him as an agent in Africa. 

Taylor went to Libya where he was one of many West African revolutionaries trained by Gaddafi’s army in the late 1980s. There he met Foday Sankoh the head of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front. As leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia Taylor provided a training camp for the RUF in Liberia as well as instructors, recruits and material support. The RUF attacked Sierra Leone from Liberia with the aid of NPLF troops in March 1991. But the two invaders fell out a year later and Taylor withdrew his NPLF army.

Nevertheless he continued to play an active involvement in the war sending arms, ammunition and other supplies across a porous border ensuring the bitter fighting continued for another five years. The RUF ignored the Abidjan Peace Accord of November 1996 and Sankoh was invited to join the government after an army coup in May 1997. But an ECOMOG force intervened in March 1998, expelled the junta from the capital Freetown, arrested Sankoh and reinstated Tejan Kabbah’s democratically elected Government.

Renegade forces under SamBockarie kept up the fight in the provinces and Bockarie went to Liberia to meet Taylor who was now president of Liberia. Taylor stressed to Bockarie the importance of re-taking the mineral stronghold of Kono so Taylor could resume the trade in guns and ammunition for Sierra Leone diamonds. Taylor told Bockarie to make his campaign fearful to pressure the Sierra Leone Government to release Sankoh from prison and use “all means” including terror tactics to take Freetown.

Bockarie named the attack OperationNo Living Thing and anything that stood in their way would be eliminated. He retook Kono in December 1998 and attacked Freetown in January 1999. All the while, he kept in close contact with Taylor who provided him with a satellite phone. The Liberian president also sent troops and facilitated the purchase and transport of a large shipment of arms and ammunition from Burkina Faso used in the Kono attack.  After Sankoh was released from prison in 1999 he personally delivered diamonds to Taylor as did other RUF leaders until cessation of hostilities in 2002. Sierra Leone diamonds were prized as much greater quality than Liberian ones.

The defence claimed Taylor was a diplomatic force for peace. But as president of Liberia and a member of the ECOWASCommittee he wielded considerable influence over the warring factions in Sierra Leone. But while publicly participating in regional efforts to broker peace, Taylor was secretly fuelling hostilities between the RUF and the Sierra Leone government. While the Court could not find a chain of command between Taylor and Sankoh it was satisfied he gave guidance, advice, guns and money that aided and abetted multiple murders, rape, slavery and other offences as well as planning the attacks on Kono and Freetown in 1998 and 1999.  Taylor is likely to appeal the decision.

Charles Taylor trial of brief interest to celebrity mags

The Special Court for Sierra Leone does not usually feature in world tabloid headlines nor does it typically attract the attention of supermodels and Hollywood stars. The Court has a very serious purpose:genocide. It wants to try those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian and local law in Sierra Leone since it was overrun by rebels on 30 November 1996. Its most famous case is the trial of Charles Ghankay Taylor, former President of neighbouring Liberia, who stands accused of 17 crimes against humanity including murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscription of child soldiers by arming RUF rebels during the 1991-2001 Sierra Leone civil war.

Taylor's extended trial took a surreal edge recently with the conflicting testimony of a Hollywood star and a supermodel briefly giving case a taste of world tabloid headlines. In the last month the Court heard testimony from actress Mia Farrow which contradicted that of British model Naomi Campbell. Prosecutors had called the model to testify to provide evidence that Taylor had handled blood diamonds used to purchase weapons during the war.

The prosecution said Taylor gave a gift of diamonds to Campbell at a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela in September 1997. The occasion was a lavish dinner in Cape Town to raise funds for the Mandela Children’s Fund. Campbell attended the dinner along with Farrow and Campbell’s former modelling agent Carole White. Campbell gave evidence on 5 August which attracted large headlines, partially because she told the Court her appearance there was a “big inconvenience” (a mistake for which she would later apologise to the Court) and partially because of the incongruity of a model giving testimony at a genocide trial. As the Washington Post noted, it’s hard to believe that these two worlds could ever collide. “That they did, however, said the Post, "is testament to beauty as both valuable currency and irresistible narcotic."

In her own evidence Campbell said she was woken up from sleep by two unknown men who handed her a pouch saying it was a gift. Because she was sleepy she didn’t ask who the men were or who gave her the pouch. She said she did not even open the pouch until the following morning she was disappointed to find a few “very small, dirty looking stones”. She said either Farrow or White suggested the stones were from Taylor and she believed so herself.

With Campbell’s testimony giving Taylor a lifeline, the Prosecution looked to White and Farrow to give them the evidence they needed. But these two only succeeded in complicating the picture as they contradicted Campbell and each other. Farrow told the court on she heard Campbell say that Taylor had given her a "huge diamond" at the dinner. She said Campbell told the story to a group of guests at breakfast the following morning. Carole White said it wasn’t a huge diamond but rather five separate pieces. She said Campbell and Taylor were seated near each other during the dinner and started flirting. White said Campbell then whispered to her Taylor was going to give her diamonds and she was very excited at the prospect.

Campbell told the court that she later gave the diamonds to Jeremy Ractliffe, a representative of a Mandela charity. Ractliffe said he worried the gift would damage reputations and might be illegal, so he kept the diamonds and did not tell anyone. He issued a statement last week saying that following Campbell's testimony he had now handed over to authorities three alleged "blood diamonds" given to him by the model. South African police confirmed their authenticity.

The appearance of the beautiful and wealthy Western women and their precious stones overshadowed most of the other recent testimony in the trial. Former RUF leader Issa Hassan Sesay, who has already been convicted by the Court for his part in the atrocities, has been on the stand for three weeks. He refuted claims Taylor had directed the rebels when they entered the capital Freetown in 1999. The prosecution preferred to hammer him on his earlier statements Taylor had directed the 1998 attack on diamond-rich town of Kono. Sesay's testimony concludes this week.

It is more difficult to say how much longer will go on for as proceedings head towards the seven year mark. Taylor was indicted on 7 March 2003, when he was still President. The indictment was announced three months later on his first trip outside of Liberia. In August Charles Taylor resigned as president and went into exile in Nigeria. Nigeria finally transferred him to the Special Court in March 2006. Due to concerns about security in Sierra Leone, the Special Court arranged for the trial to be held at The Hague where he was transferred to in June 2006. After legal wrangling, the Prosecution re-opened witness testimony on in January 2008. They closed their case 13 months later after having presented testimony from 91 witnesses. The Defence opened their case on 13 July 2009. The Prosecution also reopened its case to call Campbell, Farrow and White. While the trial briefly reached the women's magazines, it will now once again retreat into international law journals, until the day the judges make their final decision.

Charles Taylor trial starts in The Hague

The trial of Charles Taylor opened yesterday in The Hague with the dramatic boycott of proceedings by the 59 year old former Liberian dictator. Instead his lawyer read out a letter on Taylor’s behalf. In the letter Taylor denounced the court, claimed he could not receive a fair trial and terminated his participation by dismissing his lead counsel. "I cannot take part in this charade that does injustice to the people of Liberia and the people of Sierra Leone," he said in the letter. "I choose not to be a fig-leaf of legitimacy for this process."

Taylor’s lawyer Karim Kahn then walked out of the room in defiance of a court order to continue to represent Taylor for the day. Julia Sebutinde, the British-trained Ugandan presiding judge, said the trial would continue despite Taylor's failure to attend, as the session quickly got bogged down in legal arguments that delayed the prosecution's opening presentation. The case then began with an overview of the history, a description of the crimes and a description of the individual liability for which Taylor could be held responsible.

Charles Taylor has been indicted on 11 charges, including terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, mutilation and recruiting child soldiers linked to his alleged support for rebels in Sierra Leone's civil war. The prosecution claims to have overwhelming evidence that holds Taylor conducted war crimes against Sierra Leone’s civilian population. He is being tried in the Special Court for Sierra Leone in offices borrowed from the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up joint by the UN and Sierra Leone. It is an independent judicial body set up to "try those who bear greatest responsibility" for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sierra Leone after 1996 during the Civil War that ravaged that country. So far, eleven people have been charged with offences. Ten of these trials have taken place in the capital Freetown but Taylor’s high profile trial was moved out of Sierra Leone due to fears that militias still loyal to Taylor might attack the court room. Proceedings are been broadcast live on four giant screens in Freetown.

Charles Taylor is the first African head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international tribunal. He is currently being held in the same prison where former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was held when he died in 2006. This is not the first time Taylor has been in jail. In 1985, he was imprisoned in Massachusetts after he stole $900,000 in Liberian government funds in the US. He escaped after a year and returned to Africa.

Taylor first came to world prominence when he launched a revolt from the Ivory Coast which stormed Liberia’s capital Monrovia in 1989. He overthrew former leader Samuel Doe and kept control of the country in a civil war which lasted through the early 1990s. Although he cemented his position by winning an election in 1996, he was eventually ousted by Liberian rebels and Taylor accepted asylum in Nigeria in 2003. Liberia requested Nigeria to extradite him and in 2004 he was released into the custody of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Human rights organisations are hoping his trial sends a message to other dictators that no-one can escape punishment for atrocities. Human Rights Watch say the case provides an important chance for victims to see justice done. “The trial of a former president associated with human rights abuses across West Africa represents a break from the past,” said Elise Keppler, counsel with Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “All too often, there has been no justice for victims of serious human rights violations. Taylor’s trial puts would-be perpetrators on notice.”

Taylor has denied all 11 charges. When the case for the prosecution finally started, Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp alleged that Taylor waged a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sierra Leone by arming and training the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel force which murdered and mutilated civilians, raped women and recruited child soldiers. Taylor armed the RUF in exchange for diamonds which he trafficked on the black market despite a ban on conflict diamonds. The decade long war claimed 60,000 deaths and an untold number of mutilations.

If convicted, he is likely to serve his sentence in the UK. Last year British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said London has agreed to a request from former UN chief Kofi Annan to imprison him if convicted. The tribunal has wide powers of sentencing. It statutes allow a sentence of "imprisonment for a specified number of years" without giving a maximum. This means he could go to prison for life. The trial is expected to last 12 to 18 months.