{{Prosecutors and lawyers defending former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor will Tuesday begin their appeals at Sierra Leone’s UN-backed special court (SCSL) against his 50-year prison sentence for fuelling the west African nation’s savage civil war.}}
Appeals judges are to question and listen to arguments both from prosecutors demanding a heavier sentence and from the former strongman’s lawyers calling for his sentence to be quashed or reduced.
The hearing, set for 10:00 am (0900 GMT) at the SCSL’s headquarters in the leafy suburb of Leidschendam outside The Hague, is to be dominated by particularly complex legal arguments – with both sides saying judges made mistakes in law in convicting Taylor in April last year and sentencing him in May.
The UN-backed court’s 50-year sentence against Taylor, 64, for “some of the most heinous crimes in human history” was widely welcomed around the world at the time.
Judges said he aided and abetted rebel forces fighting against Freetown during Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, known for its mutilations, drugged child soldiers and sex slaves.
In return, trial judges found, Taylor was paid in “blood diamonds” mined by slave labour in areas kept under the control of ruthless Sierra Leonean rebels.
The historic sentence was the first handed down against a former head of state in an international court since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946.
Prosecutors, who declined to comment ahead of the hearing, are to argue that trial judges made a mistake by only convicting Taylor of aiding and abetting the notorious Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and other rebel groups.
NMG
Leave a Reply