Charles Taylor’s deputy testified in the war-crimes trial of the former Liberian president on Wednesday, describing how a Sierra Leonean rebel leader answered to his boss. Moses Blah was Taylor’s vice-president from 2000 until he took over as interim president for three months in 2003 after Taylor stepped down.
Prosecutors for Sierra Leone’s war crimes court are trying to track down -million they say vanished from two United States bank accounts held by former Liberian President Charles Taylor when he was forced from power in 2003. But lawyers defending the former warlord challenged prosecutors to produce evidence that Taylor had salted away state funds for his personal use.
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/ 23 February 2008
A United Nations-backed court on Friday upheld the convictions of three former rebel leaders who were sentenced to half-century prison terms last year for rape, murder and other war crimes committed during Sierra Leone’s decade-long conflict. The three were leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
The war-crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, accused of controlling militia that killed and raped thousands in Sierra Leone, resumed on Monday in The Hague after a six month delay. Taylor was present for the hearing in which the prosecution will call its first witness, an international expert on conflict diamonds.