Prosecutors opened the first UN-backed war-crimes trial on Thursday in the vicious 1991-2002 conflict in diamond-rich Sierra Leone, calling for "a just accounting for the agony of 10 long years."
Eleven suspects face trial in terror campaigns estimated to have claimed a half-million victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities. In a development that surprised even his defense team, the court's most prominent detainee announced his intention to act as his own attorney.
The civil war for control of Sierra Leone and its diamond fields won notoriety for insurgents' trademark atrocity: using machetes to hack off the hands and feet of thousands of civilians.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"Tears of the maimed, the mutilated and the violated will dampen these walls," chief prosecutor David Crane, a former US Defense Department lawyer, told judges and the public during opening statements at the US$3 million courthouse built for the trials.
"These victims, their families, their towns, their districts, their country ask of us here for a just accounting for the agony of the 10 long years," Crane declared.
The tribunal is the first international war crimes court to try suspects in the country where the atrocities occurred. It is charged with prosecuting those most responsible for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.
Though 13 defendants are indicted, only nine are in custody, and some of the most prominent suspects are dead or out of the court's reach.
Deposed Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is accused of trafficking guns and diamonds with Sierra Leone's insurgents, lives in exile in Nigeria, which has refused his extradition to the court.
Rebel leader Foday Sankoh died of natural causes while in UN custody awaiting trial.
One indicted accomplice of Taylor and Sankoh was killed last year in Liberia, in what many believe was a move to silence his testimony. Another has disappeared.
At the head of an army of child soldiers and other drugged, drunk fighters, Sankoh made and broke successive peace deals after launching his insurgency.
Lasting peace came only after forceful military intervention by neighboring Guinea and former colonial ruler the UK. A UN force -- for a while the world's biggest -- was deployed to keep the peace, overseeing 2002 postwar elections.
The first defendants to appear on Thursday were three commanders of a popular pro-government militia. All have pleaded innocent to charges including allegations that they employed child soldiers and committed atrocities in their campaign against the insurgents.
The most prominent -- Samuel Hinga Norman, the country's interior minister until his arrest last year -- waved to the gallery as he entered the court.
In an afternoon session, Norman read aloud a letter detailing his plan to represent himself.
His announcement stunned his defense team and caused a postponement of proceedings. It also raised concerns that if judges agree to his petition, Norman could work to slow the court down or turn it into a soapbox -- similar to former Yugoslav President Slobadan Milosevic's self-representation at the UN war crimes court for the Balkans, currently under way in The Hague, Netherlands.
"You don't have a layman representing himself. As you can see from the opening statement, this is a very serious matter," Norman's lawyer, James Jenkins-Johnson, said afterward.
The UN and Sierra Leone share control of the court, intended to be tightly run and narrowly focused.
The tribunal has heavy support from the US, which is providing the biggest share of its funding. Washington is looking to the court as a model for future war-crimes prosecution, in opposition to the permanent international criminal court at The Hague.
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