Sixteen months after his life of power and luxury ended in an abrupt arrest, Charles Taylor, warlord and former president of Liberia, is living in a new cellblock on the grounds of the Men's Penitentiary near The Hague.
Once known for his fine white suits, a swaggering style and plentiful weapons financed by trading timber and diamonds, Taylor now cooks his own food, does his dishes, reads newspapers and receives prison-issued pocket money. He is allowed to spend two hours in the yard and to work out in a gym.
He is the first African head of state to stand trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. If he is convicted, human rights groups say they hope that his fate could signal an end to impunity for violent dictators in Africa.
Since his trial began in June, prosecutors of the Special Court for Sierra Leone have produced about 40,000 pages to document what they call Taylor's drive for power and its accompanying atrocities, orchestrated from Liberia while he was backing forces in Sierra Leone's civil war. An estimated 200,000 people were killed or maimed in the fighting in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002.
Other crimes he is accused of in Liberia -- where several hundred thousand more people died while he led a rebel army, and after he became president in 1997 -- are not within the mandate of this court.
Taylor theatrically fired his lawyer on the opening day of his trial. Since then he has been interviewing replacement candidates and working on his defense. Herman von Hebel, the court administrator, said Taylor has two cells, "one where he sleeps and one where he keeps his paperwork." He has access to a computer, a television and a DVD player.
But after a life of mixing with presidents, rebels, diplomats, smugglers and a permanent coterie of aides, Taylor is feeling very isolated, said Karim Khan, his former lawyer.
Set within the high-security compound of the largest prison in the Netherlands, with close to 800 inmates, a cellblock for international prisoners was recently built for the International Criminal Court. There, Taylor has only one fellow inmate: a Congolese militia commander, Thomas Lubanga.
"They eat together, they share the common sitting room," said Marc Dubuisson, who oversees the prison administration.
The two inmates also share a staggering specialty. According to prosecutors, both men have used thousands of child soldiers as their henchmen, and indoctrinated and drugged pubescent boys to become warrior-butchers who were ordered to chop off civilians' arms or other body parts. Girls were kept in the camps as cooks and sex slaves.
Court officials said they did not know if the two inmates discussed such topics. Lubanga speaks French, while Taylor speaks English.
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