Shocking footage at Taylor trial

BBC ^ | 7 January 2008 | Staff

[forkinsocket]

Video footage of mutilated victims of Sierra Leone rebels has been shown at the war crimes trial of Liberia's former President Charles Taylor. Mr Taylor - who is accused of trading weapons for diamonds - showed no emotion as the first witness, an expert on "blood diamonds", gave evidence.

The delayed trial has resumed at The Hague after a six-month delay.

Mr Taylor is the first African former head of state to face an international war crimes court and faces 11 charges.

He denies responsibility for atrocities committed by rebels during the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Video of a Sierra Leonean diamond miner was shown to the court, in which he described how his hands were hacked off by laughing Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who later burned down torched his house, killing his wife and children.

[forkinsocket]

RUF fighters were also notorious for hacking off the arms and legs of the civilian population with machetes.

[SolidWood]

Good to see him before trial, but the International court is a joke. The maximum is life in comfortable prison. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if the trial goes so slowly until he drops dead ala Milosevic. Would have been better to let some African court handle it ala Saddam-trial style... including a bungled hanging.

[Reaganite1984]

Stick him in a box with his old pal Foday Sankoh.

You're right about international tribunals.

They're a complete joke.

What happened to the Nuremberg precedent?

Aren't we entitled to hang these bastards?

[Turbopilot]

Well, he’ll get the most devastating punishment the ICC can apply*...6 months work-release at a head shop in Amsterdam.

*-Unless an American soldier doing his job could be tried, in which case the soldier would get life at hard labor.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

A little history: “Jesse Jackson . . . [declared] that he welcomes Charles Taylor’s unswerving role in helping to restore peace in Sierra Leone . . . Rev. Jackson should have now been convinced, in the wake of abundant and irrefutable evidence, confirmed by the State Department, indicating that the Liberian leader is one of the major players behind the tragedy in Sierra Leone. . . .”