Charles Taylor Sentenced to 50 Years for Role in Sierra Leone Crimes - East Idaho News
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Charles Taylor Sentenced to 50 Years for Role in Sierra Leone Crimes

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Getty W 030911 CharlesTaylor?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1338379079921JERRY LAMPEN/AFP/Getty Images(LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands) — Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years behind bars on Wednesday for his role in the atrocities committed in neighboring Sierra Leone during the country’s decade-long civil war.

Last month, the 64-year-old warlord was found guilty by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on all 11 charges for “aiding and abetting” militant groups as they carried out crimes against the people of the African nation in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Those crimes included enlisting child soldiers, mass murder, the chopping off of limbs and sexual slavery.

In all, more than 50,000 died during the war.

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