International Court Proceedings, Indictment and Charges on Charles Taylor of Liberia | Desklib

This report discusses the International Court's proceedings, indictment and charges on Charles Taylor of Liberia. It covers the facts of the case, charges made, court proceedings, and application of international law. The subject is Law, course code is N/A, and college/university is N/A.

RUNNING HEAD: THE INTERNATIONAL COURT'S PROCEEDINGS, INDICTMENT AND CHARGES ON
CHARLES TAYLOR OF LIBERIA
THE INTERNATIONAL COURT'S PROCEEDINGS, INDICTMENT
AND CHARGES ON CHARLES TAYLOR OF LIBERIA
11/14/2018

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT'S PROCEEDINGS, INDICTMENT AND CHARGES ON CHARLES TAYLOR OF
LIBERIA 1
INTRODUCTION
In this paper, the discussion on Charles Taylor has been carried out who was the former
president of Liberia. He was convicted for 11 serious war crime offenses including the killing of
many innocent human beings and several other offenses committed that are against the humanity.
Further, he was involved in many violations related to international laws. These crimes were
committed for years and then after many trials and hearings of various cases, Charles Taylor
imprisoned for 50 years (Anderson, 2012). All these crimes happened during Sierra Leone’s civil
war. There were various suggestions suggested regarding the term of imprisonment, along with
this- how international law applied its application.
SCSL that is the Special Court for Sierra Leone put various charges on Charles Taylor
including rape, murder, and extermination, enslavement along with crimes, which are against the
state and not acceptable to any nation worldwide. All the charges and allegations, the
proceedings and the verdict of the case are in this report, altogether with the appeals made in
defense by Charles Taylor. All these important points written in this paper are more explanatory
with all the facts and reasons behind the verdict (BBC News, 2013). Along with the judgment
and self-analysis related to the verdict.

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(A) FACTS OF THE CASE AND THE CHARGES MADE:
In this report, the case hereby mentioned and discussed is about Charles Taylor who was
the former president of Liberia. He was originally from Arthington, Liberia. He completed his
studies in New York, and arrested there for the first time because of the allegations made against
him of occupying the diplomatic Liberian duty. He was the president between 1997 and 2003
and was a person who became a reason for many conflicts in the entire region (Bowcott, 2013).
As per the indictment by SCSL (Special Court for Sierra Leone), he and Foday Sankoh in
Libya late in 80’s, instantaneously joint cause with him (Bowcott, 2014). Charles helped with
finances and supported the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Foday Sankoh’s with
ammunition, weapons and military training and other requirements and workers. With the goal in
mind of weakening the country and attaining the right to use of the natural resources and
minerals like diamonds of Sierra Leone, he apparently reinforced the RUF for the training of
military actions there and during the later civil war.
Charles allegedly cheered and sustained all activities of the Armed Forces Revolutionary
Council i.e., AFRC and the RUF alliance, who have initiated arms and ammunition attacks inside
the boundaries of Leone, in the districts of Bombali, Kailahun, including the capital, Freetown
(Cheng, 2012). The main aim of all these attacks includes- the civilians, United Nations
peacekeeping forces and humanitarian aid staffs. These attacks supposedly executed with the
target to spread terrorism in the population and in punishment for the lack of support offered to
the RUF and the AFRC. During the time of these attacks, they allegedly committed physical
violence, murders, rape, and mutilations, robbing and kidnapping of nationals to work as forced

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laborers or sexual bondages including every adult along with children forcefully to work as if
they enrolled themselves for that (Simons, 2012). All these actions were apparently
executed/implemented and encouraged with the help and collaboration of, or on direction from,
Charles Taylor committed from 30 November 1996 to 18 January 2002 during the period of civil
war in Sierra Leone’s (Cheng, Christine, 2012).
Charles Taylor on 7 March 2003, charged by the Special court for 11 charges in total
(Waterfield, 2012) -
 Total Five of War crimes including- terrorism, violence, and chaos in civilians,
abductions etc.).
 Five Crimes against mortality including- murders, rape, extermination, slavery.
 In addition to that, one related with the attacks on humanitarian or the acts
related to it affected the peacekeeping missions and forcing the children below
15years of age to join armed forces.
 The RUF i.e., Revolutionary United Front and the AFRC join and construct a
mutual strategy and resolution, thus a joint criminal liability formed in
association with Charles Taylor.
 The Charge of joining hands with RUF and AFRC in order to attain and execute
political control over Sierra Leone or in context to this alliance intention was to
take control over the diamond mining regions.
As an outcome, the pressure built by the international community over Charles Taylor to
give resignation from the designated post of president of Liberia with all the relinquish powers
allotted to him on 11th of August 2003 (CNN. 2017).

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(B) PROCEEDINGS OF THE COURT
The criminal tribunal in capital city Freetown is SCSL, Sierra Leone. Its Appeals
Assembly room is in Leidschendam, which is quite near The Hague, Netherlands. Just as other
“fusion courts”, international and national both the judges constitute the judicial system. The
similar composition is for the employees of SCSL’s bodies. The Main goal of the SCSL is ‘to
sue persons who seriously violate the international humanitarian law and work for the justice of
sufferers. Therefore, Court deals in both domestic and international law, by putting accuse on
trial for crimes like rape, arson, abduction i.e., against humanity. Whosoever violates the
common Article 3 Additional Protocol II (1977) and Geneva Conventions (1949) and who
seriously does violations of international humanitarian law. After an unsuccessful and failed try,
Taylor ran away from Nigeria, he was behind the bars on as March 29, 2006, at the border and
passed over to the Special Court immediately (Coughlan, 2011). He pleaded before the court
that he is not guilty of most of the allegations received against him. In 2006, on 30 June because
of some safety purposes, his trial transferred by the UN to The Hague. Some allegations
discharged and only 11 charges got into consideration in order to reduce the time taken in the
trial.
The case trial started in 2007 on 4 June in the absence of Taylor who denied coming in
the court, the reason behind that that Taylor was sure that the judiciary/court would not treat or
give him a reasonable trial. After that, the renewal of the trial delayed several times to settle
some other executive issues. The case’s trial finally held on 7 January in 2008, with the
compliance of the prosecuting attorney proof until 27 February in 2009. The attorney brought 91
witnesses actually to appear and testify for the offenses committed by Taylor (Open Society,
2013). The most important argument was- he provided armed training to RUF along with AFRC

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rebels and Taylor supported them in a full-fledged way. Moreover, being a head of state he
should have taken proper measures and could have prevented them from happening.
The Defense’s submission of evidence giving session, started in 2009 on 13 July- 12 of
November 2010, after the inquiry trial of 20 different witnesses including Taylor. The lawyer of
Taylor stated that he was a peacemaker who was doing level best under his position as a first
citizen of Liberia i.e., the president, to help and come on a negotiated offer to settle the clash in
Sierra Leone. The defense argued that it is an “English conspiracy” to disqualify him from the
position he holds as it has so many powers. The Court on 11 March in 2011 closed the matter.
Then in 2012 on 31 January, Taylor’s counsel demand for the re-opening of the case to permit
them for the submission of a report by professionals of the United Nations, printed in December
in the year 2011 (Premium Times. 2018). According to the paper, soldiers in Liberia proceeded
in places like Ivory Coast without any governor. His advocates stated that a comparison should
be there with what happened in last 10 years in Sierra Leone, when the soldiers acted without his
governance. The Justices unanimously canceled the request in 2012 on 10 February (Sesay, 2013
d).
In 2012 on 26 April, the Chamber unanimously in the trial found him accused of-
 Assisting
 Supporting/ Backing up
 Preparation of terrorist activities, cruel treatments, a disgrace to one’s self-
dignity, cruel behaviors, and murders & enroll the children below 15 years to
participate vigorously in conflicts.

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 Crimes like rapes, unnatural offenses including sexual slavery and other brutal
acts.
In 2012 on 3 May, the opposing party of Taylor demanded an imprisonment of 80-years.
On 30 May of the very same year, the Special Court finally imprisoned for a duration of 50 years
(Reisman, 2013 a). As per the agreement made with the SCSL, Taylor will serve his whole term
of imprisonment in Great Britain. The parties i.e., the Defense as well as the prosecution argued
and file petition on Taylor’s sentence and conviction.
The Prosecuting attorney enticed against the denial of the Chamber to discover Taylor
liable for instigating and ordering the commission of misconducts, its prohibition of the law
breaking held in five stated districts and the imprisonment of 50 years, which it believed was too
low. The opposite attorney plead that some steps mentioned in the details about Taylor’s
involvement in some attacks are more exaggerated. Additionally, they also claimed that sentence
of 50 years was obviously not acceptable and unreasonable which actually upraised some
abnormalities in proceedings. For example, the absence of negotiation among the judiciaries and
Justice Julia Sebutinde’s involvement in the proceedings, though she had previously became the
judge of the International Court of Justice. On 22 January 2013, the process of appeal was
underway. The hearings started and then continued for two days, during which the attorneys for
both the side’s prosecution and the other on justification submitted their final opinions after
which the judges did not agree to take back their words on their judgment and unanimously
consider their decision. The earlier verdict upheld was on request of appeal on 26 September
2013, making Charles Taylor the very chief ex-Head of State to be convincingly imprisoned by
the ICJ or International Tribunal, since the end of the Second World War (Reisman, 2013 b).

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Subsequent this verdict, Taylor was relocated to Frank land prison in the city Durham,
the United Kingdom in October 2013. In an explanation of three-page note, drafted on 10
October 2013, Taylor requested that his sentence of such a long duration of 50 years of war
crimes should be in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom. Taylor actually explained that it
would be at ease and less costly for his family to visit or see him in Rwanda. He also had this
fear that he will be a target of anger/ aggression in a British prison. On 24 March 2015, the SCSL
Trial chamber denied the demand for transfer (Reisman, 2015 c). The Boardroom declared that
Taylor’s presence in Rwanda could possibly a challenge for protection, security, peace and the
stability of the Western Africa sub-region. Finally, the judges strained that criminals do not get
any benefit from- the right to select their domicile of incarceration (Simons & Goodman, 2012).
(C)APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president indicted by the special court of Sierra for 11
counts of war crimes, the crime against humanity, and the serious violation of an international
humanitarian law. Taylor was arrested and was in court’s custody in April 2006 and his trial has
started in 2007 (Sesay, 2011). The three growing issues in the international law underlined in this
article. In addition to those issues, Charles’ prosecution contributed to the current challenges
related to the norms of head-of-state protection, from prosecuting to supporting human crimes,
and in an international prosecution where, it will hire a relatively new device on the personal
culpability in a joint criminal initiative. The path-breaking task of the special court for Sierra
Leone continued this case in prosecuting entities for the crime of enlisting children who all are

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below fifteen years into armed force for the hostility use. The importance of Taylor’s trial for
each of these areas is important to the international human rights (History, 2012).
To receive an unlimited deal of international responsiveness, Taylor’s trial guaranteed
that Saddam Hussein, and Slobodan Milosevic who all are exceptionally powerful men, were
astonishingly absorbing for the most critical crime and were being charged too. They will see
Charles presented as a devilish potency who have released the dogs into the torture of the region,
if working of the court continues with its present style. They can expect mesmerizing evidence
painting a global terrorist network, a picture of an international governmental intrigue with the
completion of weapons dealing, and the cold war coalitions (Sesay, 2013 a). There could be
some distressing shreds of evidence, which they reveal on a wide-scale of violence replete with
pain, personal horrors, and sufferings. Taylor himself is a dramatic, magnetic, and cunning
personality. Because of all these facts, the judges have to struggle in the courtroom to limit the
quantity of auditorium. SCSL prosecutor’s office has recommended eighty years of jail for
Charles (Sesay, 2013 b). Moreover, as per the prosecution, the sentence that has been
proportionate by his office was with the “importance of corruptions and crimes and the specific
behavior of the accused.”
The four reasons that had been provided in the defense argument against the high
custodial term includes that why Charles should get profits from the explanatory circumstances,
the time of aberrant was not an extended time, saving children soldiers and addiction that cover a
more protracted time in the accusation from their use. Taylor was at the age of 64 already at the
time of opinion, in 2003, the time when he was being departed from his volunteering from the
Liberian presidency (Sesay, 2011 c). The judge’s prominent situations in which head-of-state
protections would not apply witnessing, “An obligatory Minister of Foreign Affairs may be topic

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT'S PROCEEDINGS, INDICTMENT AND CHARGES ON CHARLES TAYLOR OF
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to criminal measures before convinced, international criminal courts, where, they have
authorities. For an example, the international criminal panel, previously for Yugoslavia, and
Rwanda’s international criminal panel, under chapter VII of the united national charter formation
of pursuant to the security council resolutions, and 1998 Rome resolution has been created the
forthcoming international criminal court (International Court of Justice 2002: Para 61). In
addition, term of 50 years of sentence by the judges at the SCSL in May 2012. After that, Taylor
convicted of assisting and supporting the commission of severe crimes in Sierra Leone and the
scheduling of attacks on numerous towns in late 1998 and January 1999.

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(D) CONCLUSION
Charles’s case before the Special Court will offer a considerable legal inheritance and
important assistance to international law on human rights. The trial and appeal have three major
progressing legal issues:
 the range of president’s immunity
 The theory of personal culpability in criminal cases, and the international
tribunal’s authority over the crime of child bondage of recruiting them in forced
labor and armed forces.
In all those areas, Charles’s whole proceedings will underwrite to legal patterns that are
supposed to notify forthcoming of all international cases.
Lastly, the Special Court has the fortuitous to make many model-setting choices/
judgments regarding cases of child employment as to date no specific imprisoned for employing
a child into fortified forces. What evidences will the judges or justices require for such an
opinion? Employing/hiring of youth or children below 15years of age found to be part of the
illogical outcome of Taylor who was willingly assisting the RUF in maintaining and enhancing
political control in Sierra Leone. The crime of child employment and all other war crimes will
article highly in the early important effort of the International Tribunal. Hence, in the conclusion
of the above text, true and actual justice denial is completely unacceptable.

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REFERENCES
Anderson, J.L. (2012). Charles Taylor and the Killing Tree. Retrieved from:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/charles-taylor-and-the-killing-tree
BBC News. (2013). Q&A: Charles Taylor on trial. Retrieved from:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-10878424
Bowcott, O. (2013). War criminal Charles Taylor to serve 50-year sentence in British prison.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/former-liberian-
president-charles-taylor-british-prison
Bowcott, O. (2014). War criminal Charles Taylor claims UK is depriving him of right to family
life. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/war-
criminal-charles-taylor-legal-bid-rights-family-life-liberia
Cheng, C. (2012). Charles Taylor Trial Highlights ICC Concerns. Retrieved from:
https://www.globalpolicy.org/international-justice/rogues-gallery/charles-taylor/
51540-charles-taylor-trial-highlights-icc-concerns.html?itemid=id#165
Cheng, Christine. (2012). Charles Taylor Trial Highlights ICC Concerns. Retrieved from:
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51540-charles-taylor-trial-highlights-icc-concerns.html

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CNN. (2017). Charles Taylor Fast Facts. Retrieved from:
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/26/world/africa/charles-taylor-fast-facts/
index.html
Coughlan, G. (2011). Sierra Leone: Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, War Criminal? Retrieved from:
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50832-sierra-leone-tinker-taylor-soldier-war-criminal.html
History. (2012). Former Liberian president Charles Taylor found guilty of war crimes. Retrieved
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charles-taylor-found-guilty-of-war-crimes
Open Society. (2013). The Trial of Charles Taylor by the Special Court for Sierra Leone: the
Appeal Judgment. Retrieved from:
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/charles-taylor-appeal-
brief-20130924_0.pdf
Premium Times. (2018). Former Liberia president, Charles Taylor, jailed for 50 years. Retrieved
from: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/5361-
charles_taylor_goes_to_jail.html
Reisman, T. (2013 a). Appeals Chamber Upholds Taylor’s Jail Sentence. Retrieved from:
https://www.ijmonitor.org/2013/09/appeals-chamber-upholds-taylors-jail-
sentence/

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Reisman, T. (2013 b). Special Court Announces Date of Taylor Appeal Judgment. Retrieved
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appeals-judgment/
Reisman, T. (2015 c). Charles Taylor Will Remain in Prison in the UK. Retrieved from:
https://www.ijmonitor.org/2015/03/charles-taylor-will-remain-in-prison-in-the-
uk/
Sesay, A. (2011). Charles Taylor's lawyer needs a lawyer. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/feb/24/charles-taylor-international-
criminal-justice
Sesay, A. (2013 a). Charles Taylor’s Conviction and Sentence Upheld: What next for him?
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and-sentence-upheld-what-next-for-him/
Sesay, A. (2013 b). Charles Taylor’s Fate: Will He Be Back in Liberia? Retrieved from:
https://www.ijmonitor.org/2013/09/charles-taylors-fate-will-he-be-back-in-liberia/
Sesay, A. (2013 c). Charles Taylor’s Former Investigator Sentenced to Two and Half years in
Jail. Retrieved from: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2013/02/charles-taylors-former-
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Sesay, A. (2013 d).In Sierra Leone, Victims Celebrate Taylor’s Conviction. Retrieved from:
https://www.ijmonitor.org/2013/10/in-sierra-leone-victims-celebrate-taylors-
conviction/

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Simons, M. & Goodman, J.D. (2012). Ex-Liberian Leader Gets 50 Years for War Crimes.
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taylor-sentenced-to-50-years-for-war-crimes.html
Simons, M. (2012). Ex-President of Liberia Aided War Crimes, Court Rules
Waterfield, B. (2012). Charles Taylor found guilty of 11 counts of war crimes. Retrieved from:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/
9229485/Charles-Taylor-found-guilty-of-11-counts-of-war-crimes.html