The LookoutFormer Liberian President Charles G. Taylor sentenced to 50 years for war crimes
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Former Liberian President Charles G. Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Wednesday for his role in Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war that left more than 50,000 dead.
[Related: Who is Charles G. Taylor?]
Taylor, the first former head of state convicted of war crimes since World War II, was found guilty last month on 11 charges of aiding rebels in what CNN described as "a campaign of terror, involving murder, rape, sexual slavery and the conscription of children younger than 15." He was also found guilty of a "blood diamond" plot—"using Sierra Leone's diamond deposits to help fuel its civil war with arms and guns while enriching himself."
His lawyers say they plan to appeal.
On Wednesday, at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Leidschendam, near The Hague, Netherlands, Taylor looked down as Judge Richard Lussick read the sentencing statement. "The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history," Lussick said.
The judge also recounted statements from prosecution witnesses. "Witness TF1064 was forced to carry a bag containing human heads," Lussick said. "On the way, the rebels ordered her to laugh as she carried the bags dripping with blood. The bag was emptied, and she saw the heads of her children."
[Slideshow: Charles Taylor sentenced to 50 years]
There is no death penalty in international criminal law; the prosecution asked the court to sentence Taylor, 64, to 80 years, but the tribunal judges felt that sentence was "excessive." He will serve his sentence in a British jail.
Taylor was president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003. He was arrested in 2006.
"I never stood a chance," Taylor, who described himself as a "peacemaker," said last week in court. "Only time will tell how many other African heads of state will be destroyed."
"The sentence that was imposed today does not replace amputated limbs," prosecutor Brenda Hollis said at the sentencing. "It does not bring back those who were murdered. It does not heal the wounds of those who were victims of sexual violence and does not remove the permanent emotional and psychological and physical scars of those enslaved or recruited as child soldiers."
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