The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
May 30, 2012

Liberia’s Charles Taylor Gets 50 Years for War Crimes 
--------------------------------------------------------


 
An international tribunal has sentenced former Liberian President
Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison following his conviction on war
crimes during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Taylor was found guilty last
month of overseeing crimes including murder, rape, conscripting child
soldiers and sexual slavery. Taylor is the first African head of state
to be found guilty in an international court and the first head of state
to be convicted since the Second World War. Earlier this year, U.S.
officials confirmed long-held suspicions Taylor worked for the CIA and
other U.S. intelligence agencies during his emergence as a warlord in
the 1980s.

 

.