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Charles Taylor convicted on all counts of War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/26/2012, 11:05am PDT Charles Taylor, the former President - or more honestly, Maximum Leader - of Liberia, after a trial that ran a whopping four years, has been convicted of Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes by the Sierra Leone special court (operated by the United Nations) in The Hague, Netherlands for his involvement in sponsoring the rebels in the neighboring country of Sierra Leone back in the 1990s. Because Sierra Leone didn't want him in the country - it was likely to trigger riots - his trial was moved to Europe, and Taylor will serve whatever jail sentence he gets in the United Kingdom. (That was the agreement that was settled when Taylor was turned over to Sierra Leone some six years agi.) It's a shame he's tried in Europe, because they won't have the death penalty, but (based on an estimate by someone who understands how the court hands out punishments) he'll probably get 40 to 50 years in prison when he's sentenced in next month. Since he's 62, that means he'll die in prison. While he was not found to be in charge of the combatants, he was convicted of aiding and abetting the commission of atrocities by the rebel forces. Taylor apparently got buckets of conflict diamonds which were used to pay for the weapons and other ordnance supplied to them. Taylor was convicted on all 11 charges: CAH = Crimes Against Humanity WC = Violation of Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II (war crimes) VIHL = Other serious violation of international humanitarian law Terrorising the civilian population and collective punishments 1 Acts of terrorism (WC) Unlawful killings 2 Murder (CAH) 3 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder (WC) Sexual violence 4 Rape (CAH) 5 Sexual slavery and any other form of sexual violence (CAH) 6 Outrages upon personal dignity (WC) Physical violence 7 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment (WC) 8 Other inhumane acts (CAH) Use of child soldiers 9 Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities (VIHL) Abductions and forced labour 10 Enslavement (CAH) Looting 11 Pillage (WC) Well, from the list of charges it sounds like someone was having lots of fun. Charges 7 and 8 refer to the practices of the rebel groups of cutting off people's arms and legs. It sounds like from number 11 in the list that Taylor violated some of "The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries" from the Webcomic Schlock Mercenary, specifically #1: Pillage, then burn. Taylor becomes the first person to live long enough to come to trial and be convicted for war crimes since the Nuremberg War Crimes trials at the end of World War II. The last person to go on trial for War Crimes, Slobodan Milosevich, who was involved with the atrocities in what used to be Yugoslavia during the 1980s, died before the trial was completed.

Charles Taylor convicted on all counts of War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/26/2012, 11:05am PDT     You're next, TDARCOS. Convicted on all counts of NT by Crimes Against Caltrops 04/26/2012, 12:32pm PDT     in other news Bob Mugabe shat himself and started blabbering like a lunatic by Oom Shnibble 05/31/2012, 9:06am PDT