A United Nations-backed war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone will on Wednesday hand down its first verdict over atrocities during the African nation’s decade civil war in which 120Â 000 people died.
The case involves three renegade soldiers-turned-rebels, allegedly supported by former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu were part of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a rebel faction led by Johnny Paul Koroma that toppled an elected regime in 1997 before embarking on terror campaigns, including burning children to death and mutilating civilians, in the West African country.
The trio also stands accused of commanding rebel forces that terrorised civilians in the diamond-rich districts of Sierra Leone and were behind the infamous January 1999 attack on the capital.
Six years after the end of the war, the rebel atrocities are still painfully visible. Thousands of civilians had hands and feet chopped off while others had the AFRC acronym forcibly carved on their bodies.
One victim of AFRC’s atrocities, Kemoh Sanusie who was forced to watch while his children were tossed to their death in a fire, vowed not miss the verdict when it is delivered at the court in Freetown.
“I would hate to miss this history in the making,” he said.
“It would put paid to the guys who burnt down my father’s house and tossed my kids into the fire as the house was burning and they asked me to smile.”
Multiple rapes and forced marriages are among the litany of widespread and systematic offences the three face.
The rebels allegedly mutilated thousands, cutting off arms, legs, ears or noses.
The trio have pleaded innocent to the 14 counts they face, which also include conscripting child soldiers in a war fuelled by so-called blood diamonds in this small mineral-rich country.
The trial of the trio, who were senior members of the dreaded AFRC, opened in March 2005 and ended in December last year.
AFRC leader Koroma was among the 13 people originally indicted by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), but has not been arrested yet and is presumed dead.
Taylor, whose hearing opened early this month, is the most high-profile figure to be tried by the SCSL, which does not impose death sentences.
After ousting the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on May 25 1997, the AFRC set up a junta that included members of the main rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and briefly led the government.
The RUF started the decade long civil war in 1991 in the former British colony.
War survivors in Freetown still vividly recall the AFRC invading the oceanside capital in January 1999, terrorising residents and marching off about 5Â 000 others into the hills where hundreds were crudely mutilated and little girls were raped.
Ken Lawson, whose right leg was hacked off on the outskirts of the city, said “little tears will be shed if they are found guilty”.
On retreating from the capital under heavy fire from the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping forces Ecomog they torched nearly 75% of official buildings including the Town Hall and police offices.
A huge turnout is expected at Wednesday’s sitting. — AFP