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UN: REBEL
LEADERS FOUND GUILTY IN FIRST VERDICTS FROM UN-BACKED COURT IN SIERRA
LEONE:
21/6/2007 (MaximsNews.com,
U.N.)
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UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@
U.N./
- 21
June 2007 –
The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)
today issued
its first verdicts, finding three former rebel leaders guilty of multiple counts
of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the West African country’s
prolonged civil war in the 1990s.
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Alex Tamba Brima,
Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu were each found guilty on 11
charges, including committing acts of terrorism, murder, rape and
enslavement and conscripting children under the age of 15 into armed groups.
The three men,
former leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a group of
Sierra Leonean soldiers who allied themselves with the notorious rebel
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during the civil war, were each acquitted
on three other charges, including sexual slavery and forced marriage.
Justice Julia
Sebutinde, the presiding judge in the trials, read out the verdicts today at
a hearing in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. A sentencing hearing has
been set for 16 July.
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Yesterday's
judgements are not only the first from the Special Court, but they mark the
first time that an international tribunal has ruled on the charge of recruitment
of child soldiers into an armed force and on the crime of forced marriage in an
armed conflict.
Mr.
Brima, Mr. Kamara and Mr. Kanu were indicted separately in 2003 but in February
2004 the Court’s trial chamber ordered that the three men be tried together.
The SCSL,
the second international war crimes tribunal established in Africa, was mandated
to try those bearing the greatest responsibility for serious violations of
international humanitarian and Sierra Leonean law within Sierra Leone's borders
since 30 November 1996.
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