GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Charles Taylor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for what the Special Court for Sierre Leone meeting in The Hague labelled some of the worst crimes in history in its ruling 30 May. Taylor, the 64-year-old former president of Liberia, was found guilty in April on 11 counts stemming from the help he gave rebels in neighbouring Sierre Leone as they carried out murders, rapes and other sordid crimes from 1991 to 2002, in an exchange that involved blood diamonds.
The prosecution had asked for 80 years, but the CS Monitor notes that “the sentence set a precedent for an international justice system aimed at deterring future war crimes. The court rejected all the defense’s appeals for leniency.
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