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Background: Charles Taylor trial

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 04 June 2007

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor goes on trial for war crimes in the Sierra Leone civil war.

Proceedings opened on 4 June with Taylor refusing to attend the court, announcing via a defence lawyer that he thought he would not receive a fair trial.

Charles Taylor: the charges

The trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, began today at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. He is the first African leader to face justice at an international tribunal.

The court indicted Taylor in March 2003 on 11 counts relating to his involvement in the civil war in Sierra Leone.

Taylor faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges include acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, the use of child soldiers, abductions and forced labour, and looting.

Taylor has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Charles Taylor: a biography

Born in 1948, Charles Taylor studied in the United States before returning to Liberia after a coup led by Samual Doe in 1980.

In May 1984 he was arrested for embezzlement in the United States. He escaped from jail in Massachusetts in 1985 and subsequently fled the US for Libya.

In 1989 Taylor launched an armed uprising from Cote d'Ivoire into Liberia. His forces overthrew the president, Samuel Doe.

The ensuing Liberian civil war turned into an ethnic conflict in which up to 200,000 people were killed and more than one million forced from their homes.

Liberia's civil war ended in 1996. In the following year Taylor was elected president. During his presidential campaign Taylor adopted the slogan "He killed my Ma, he killed my Pa, but I will vote for him."

In 1999 a rebellion against Taylor began in northern Liberia, led by Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy.

In 2003 a second rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia, emerged in southern Liberia. In the same year the UN issued a warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges in relation to the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

On August 10 2003 Taylor announced his resignation as Liberian president on national TV, handing over power to Vice-President Moses Blah.

In 2006 Taylor was released by Nigeria, where he had been living, to stand trial in Liberia. He disappeared but was subsequently arrested as he crossed the border into Cameroon.

Sierra Leone civil war

Civil war broke out in Sierra Leone 1991 amid governmental corruption and mismanagement of diamond resources.

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), under British Army-trained Foday Sankoh, launched a series of attacks on villages, eventually gaining control of Kono district diamond mines. Before beginning the RUF campaign Sankoh had already formed an alliance with Charles Taylor, with whom it is alleged he traded diamonds in return for guns.

Taylor went on to establish close contacts with Sam Bockarie when the latter became RUF battle group commander in 1992. Five years later Sankoh was exiled to Nigeria, and Bockarie assumed the RUF leadership. With Taylor's support, the RUF was by 1999 in a position to negotiate with the incumbent Sierra Leone president, Ahmad Kabbah.

The resulting Lome peace accord, signed on 7 July 1999, confirmed Ahmad Kabbah as president and made Sankoh vice-president

In the same year Nigeria led an intervention force into Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, bringing the fighting to an end. The RUF campaign of violence continued, however, and in 2000 British troops were deployed to establish order in the country

In 2003 Sam Bockarie was killed in a shootout with Liberian forces. Taylor may have ordered Bockarie's killing to stop him from testifying against him at the independent Special Court for Sierra Leone, where Taylor had been charged with crimes against humanity.

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