Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison by the International Criminal Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
Taylor, 64, was convicted in April of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during the country’s brutal 1991-2001 civil war.
“The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history,” said Special Court for Sierra Leone judge Richard Lussick yesterday.
“The trial chamber unanimously sentences you to a single term of imprisonment for 50 years on all counts,” the judge announced.
“The trial chamber noticed that the effect of these crimes on the families and society as a whole in Sierra Leone was devastating,” Lussick said in handing down the ruling, the first sentence against a former head of state in an international court since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946.
Taylor, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and dressed in a dark suit and gold tie, listened with his eyes closed as the judge handed down the sentence, which Taylor’s team, and prosecutors, have two weeks to appeal.
Early this month, chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis argued for 80 years behind bars for Taylor while his defence argued that such a sentence would be “excessive”.
Throughout the trial, Taylor himself maintained his innocence and insisted he was instrumental in eventually ending Sierra Leone’s civil war.
He will remain in the UN’s detention unit in The Hague until his appeal procedure is finalised.
Taylor’s sentence will be served in a British prison. London’s offer in 2007 to host Taylor in custody if he was found guilty was part of the deal to put him on trial in the Netherlands-based court, backed by the United Nations.
Lawyers react
Meanwhile, there have been mixed reactions from Nigerian lawyers over Taylor’s plight. While some lawyers considered the ruling well-deserved and “a strong warning” to all African leaders who trample on the rights of their people, Nigeria’s foremost constitutional lawyer, Prof.?
Itse Sagay (SAN) saw it as rather too harsh, saying the western authorities were prejudiced against Taylor. Speaking with LEADERSHIP over the telephone, Sagay said: “The sentence is rather too harsh. Taylor is not a very likeable person, but I have this feeling that the West, which prosecuted him, was prejudiced against Taylor. In fact, one cannot even say whether he had a fair trial because those trying him already believed that he was guilty.”
According to Sagay, Taylor was being punished for crimes committed in Sierra Leone and not Liberia where he was president.
He said it was not proper for Taylor to be so sentenced when others who participated in the crime in Sierra Leone had not been tried. “I don’t understand the rush to convict Taylor. I think it was carried out in a very extreme manner, it is excessive,” he added.
However, Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN) said it was justice done. He said: “I thought they would have jailed him 200 years. Our leaders should know that the world is no longer a global village, but a neighbourhood. It is a well-deserved judgment, but I would have preferred if they had given him a life imprisonment. Fifty years is not commensurate with the crime he committed against the people.”
Also, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), said the court was thorough in its decision and urged that the decision be respected to ensure that it serves as a deterrent to leaders across the globe.