A United Nations-backed Sierra Leone court on Thursday issued its first sentences since the end of the West African nation’s bloody conflict, ordering three rebel leaders convicted of war crimes to prison for between 45 and 50 years each.
Presiding Judge Julia Sebutinde announced the sentences against three leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, a junta that overthrew an elected government in 1997 and was ousted by a Nigerian-led peacekeeping force the following year.
Alex Tamba Brima and Santigie Borbor Kanu were each ordered to serve 50 years in prison, while Brima Bazzy Kamara received a 45-year sentence.
All three have the right to appeal; if they lose, they will serve their sentences outside Sierra Leone because of security concerns, mostly likely in Europe, said Peter Andersen, a spokesperson for the court.
The three men had been indicted in 2003 and their joint trial began in Freetown in 2005. They were convicted on June 20 of 11 of 14 charges, including terrorism, enslavement, rape and murder. The ruling also marked the first time an international court issued a conviction on the conscription of child soldiers, who were often drugged and forced into battle.
”All three accused persons are cowardly and disloyal soldiers who waged war against the civilian population and they should receive extremely lengthy sentences that would satisfy the people of Sierra Leone and put an end to impunity,” deputy chief prosecutor Christopher Staker told judges on Monday.
The charges linked them to fighters who raped women, burned villages, conscripted thousands of child soldiers and forced others to work as labourers in diamond mines.
Tribunal
The Sierra Leone tribunal was set up following the end of a 10-year war in 2002 to prosecute the worst offenders in a war that ravaged the small West African nation and consumed neighbouring Liberia. It is estimated that about half a million people died during the war, victims of systematic mutilation and other atrocities. The conflict was fuelled by illicit diamond sales for years.
The court has indicted 12 people, including former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is charged with backing Sierra Leonean rebels.
Some have said the special court is working too slowly. Three of those charged have died since their indictments — including rebel chief Foday Sankoh, who died of natural causes in 2003 while in prison awaiting trial.
Five others are awaiting verdicts in Freetown.
Taylor’s trial opened earlier this month in The Hague, The Netherlands. It is being held outside Freetown because of fears the case could trigger fresh violence, but remains under the auspices of the Sierra Leone court. Taylor’s case is being heard in a room rented from the International Criminal Court.
Taylor is also linked to brutality in his own country, but Liberians have opted for a truth and reconciliation commission rather than a court. — Sapa-AP