LAWYERS AND HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS COMMENT AHEAD OF TAYLOR SENTENCE

(30 May 2012) On Wednesday, an international war crimes court will deliver its sentence on warlord-turned-Liberian president Charles Taylor.
In a landmark ruling in April, judges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone found Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers.
Judges at the United Nations-backed court said his aid was essential in helping rebels in Sierra Leone continue their bloody rampage during the West African nation's decade-long civil war, which ended in 2002 with more than 50-thousand people dead.
Judges found Taylor helped the rebels obtain weapons in full knowledge they would likely be used to commit terrible crimes, in exchange for payments of "blood diamonds" often obtained by slave labour.
It was the first time a former head of state had been convicted of war crimes since the aftermath of World War II.
Taylor is due to be sentenced on May 30, with prosecutors demanding an 80-year prison term, and defence lawyers arguing he should at least be given a sentence that leaves him some hope for life after release.
Defence attorney Courtenay Griffiths argued for a sentence that reflects Taylor's indirect role: he was found guilty only of aiding the rebels, not leading them, as prosecutors originally charged.
"It's questionable from our point of view whether the imposition of such a long sentence will have any real impact because people will see through the falsity of the reasoning behind the imposition of such a sentence," Griffiths said.
Griffiths said the 80 year sentencing demand was disproportionate for Taylor, who is 64.
"If Taylor's verdict is really ending the idea of immunity, then it should equally apply to powerful countries as it does to weaker countries like Liberia, so it is a very important precedent in that regard", Griffiths said.
However, he added that he doubted "this decision will act as a restraint upon Russia, upon the United States, against the powerful countries in this world".
The prosecution and human rights groups underlined the significance of the sentence as a precedent as well as for the victims in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
"What it will do is it will ensure that people who are eventually held to account and are tried will know that the international community is taking this seriously and will continue to take this seriously, and hopefully if the sentence reflects that, that will also reinforce that position", said Andie Lambe of the London-based human rights group "Global Witness".
Taylor said during his sentencing hearing on May 16 that he sympathises with victims of the civil war in Sierra Leone he helped foment, and asked judges to render their sentence against him in a spirit of "reconciliation, not retribution."
However, he stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing, apologising for his actions, or expressing remorse.
He insisted his actions had actually been designed to help stabilise the region and claimed he never knowingly assisted in the commission of crimes.
Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria after being indicted by the court in 2003 and wasn't arrested for three years.
While the Sierra Leone court is formally based in that country's capital, Taylor's trial is being staged in Leidschendam, a suburb of The Hague, Netherlands, for fear holding it in West Africa could destabilise the region.
Taylor is awaiting the sentencing in his cell in a special international wing of a Dutch jail in The Hague.
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