The rebels were known for asking their victims if they preferred “long sleeves” or “short sleeves.” They then cut off the hands of those who chose the first option and the full arm of those that picked the second.
On Wednesday, an international court modeled after the Nuremberg tribunal convicted three top Sierra Leone rebel leaders of crimes against humanity — the closest thing to justice in the West African nation of amputees, orphans and widows.
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Issa Sesay and one of his battlefield commanders Morris Kallon were found guilty on 16 of 18 counts, including mutilation, terrorism, rape, forced marriage, sexual slavery and the enlistment of child soldiers. Another commander, Augustine Gbao, was found guilty on 14 of the 18 counts.
All three had pleaded not guilty and shook their heads as the verdict was read.
About 500,000 people were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002. Illicit diamond sales fueled the conflict, dramatized by the 2006 film Blood Diamond, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
Rebels controlled the diamond fields and used the sale of the gem to buy guns. The rebels were allegedly trained and backed by Charles Taylor, the warlord of neighboring Liberia.
For over a decade, the rebels roamed Sierra Leone’s jungles, raiding villages, vying for control of the nation’s diamond fields.
Amputations became their hallmark and field commanders were known by names like “Captain Two Hands” and “Dr Blood.” They used machetes, axes and knives and sat three astride their victims, who were forced to place their hands on concrete slabs or tree trunks.
New conscripts — especially children — were given bags and told not to return until they had filled them with severed limbs.
Sesay, Kallon and Gbao are the last three rebel leaders to be convicted.
The court was set up in 2003 after the end of the 11-year war that began in 1992. Five other masterminds of the conflict have already been convicted.
“The greatest significance of this is that it recognizes that the people of Sierra Leone were victims of these horrendous crimes and it holds individuals accountable,” said the Special Court’s chief prosecutor, Stephen Rapp.
“Beyond that we are also sending a message to this country, across the region and across the world that these crimes will not be tolerated,” Rapp said.
So gruesome were the crimes committed in Sierra Leone during the civil war that a new body of law needed to be drafted in order to address them.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
SECRETIVE SECT: Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022. The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who
RSS