NETHERLANDS: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor to reject prosecution's call for an 80-year sentence for atrocities he committed during 11-year war in Sierra Leone

Record ID: 861304

  • Title: NETHERLANDS: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor to reject prosecution's call for an 80-year sentence for atrocities he committed during 11-year war in Sierra Leone
  • Date: 17th May 2012
  • Summary: LEIDSCHENDAM, THE NETHERLANDS (MAY16, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF COURT SECURITY CAMERA ON BUILDING VAN ENTERING GATE UN FLAG EXTERIOR COURT
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Netherlands
  • City:
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA6OU5SR1JHQJ2E8TLHJJ8NHLU4
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  • Story Text: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor appeared in court in a suburb of the The Hague on Wednesday (May 16) to be sentenced for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war.
    During the hearing he is expected to tell judges he bears no responsibility for the crimes, rejecting the prosecution's demand for an 80-year sentence in a maximum-security British jail.
    Speaking at the hearing, Chief Prosecutor Brenda Hollis called for the brutality of the crimes to be taken into account when sentencing.
    "In relation to an assessment of the gravity of the crimes of which Mr Taylor has been convicted, we agree with the defence that such assessment should include the, in our view, massive scale and, in our view, extreme of brutality of these crimes, the vulnerability of the victims and, of course, the impact on the victims and their relatives, both then and now," she said.
    Taylor, convicted last month of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone's conflict, is the first head of state to be found guilty by an international tribunal since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg.
    His trial caught the public's attention with its grisly mix of massacres and mutilations committed by drugged child soldiers, and the notorious "blood diamonds" or uncut stones from the conflict zones which supermodel Naomi Campbell described as "dirty little pebbles" when she testified in court.
    Taylor and his defence lawyers have characterised the case as a racist sham and a Western conspiracy, led by the United Kingdom and the United States, against black Africans.
    The first African leader to stand trial for war crimes, Taylor was charged with 11 counts of murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery during intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in which more than 50,000 people were killed.
    The warlord-turned-president was also accused of directing Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in a campaign of terror to plunder Sierra Leone's diamond mines for profit and to obtain weapons.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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