Hussein Bogere & Agencies
5 June 2007
UGANDAN judge Julia Sebutinde yesterday insisted that the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor must continue, despite the accused refusing to attend the opening session.
Mr Taylor is accused of arming a rebel group in neighbouring Sierra Leone that killed, raped and maimed thousands.
Mr Taylor, in a letter read out in court, said he could not expect a fair trial.
Justice Sebutinde is chairing the coram of four judges in the trial that started yesterday. It is being conducted in a special chamber of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting in The Hague, Netherlands.
In the letter read out by his defence lawyer Karim Khan, Mr Taylor said: "I am driven to conclude that I will not receive a fair trial before the special court at this time and I must decline to attend hearings."
Justice Sebutinde repeatedly interrupted Mr Khan's reading of Mr Taylor's letter, demanding a to-the-point explanation for Mr Taylor's absence.
"We are not interested in political speeches," she told Mr Khan in her characteristic straight-talk.
"I cannot take part in this charade that does injustice to the people of Liberia and to the people of Sierra Leone," Mr Taylor's letter said.
"I have only one counsel to appear on my behalf against nine on the prosecution team. This is neither fair nor just."
According to Mr Khan, Mr Taylor also "terminated his instructions to [his] legal counsel" and asked his defence team to cease representing him.
"He will represent himself," Mr Khan told the court on Monday. Justice Sebutinde repeatedly asked him to stay, if anything for the opening day but Mr Khan refused. He simply gathered his files and walked out.
"If that's the decision you have taken, so be it," Justice Sebutinde said, directing another member of the defence team, Charles Jalloh, to represent Mr Taylor during the prosecution's opening statement.
It was a day of firsts yesterday, with Justice Sebutinde being the first Ugandan to preside over a court in The Hague, and Mr Taylor the first African head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international tribunal.
Proceedings at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone are expected to last between a year and 18 months, and the United Kingdom has offered to imprison Mr Taylor if he is convicted.
The former Liberian leader has been indicted on 11 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law over his alleged role in the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone.
The charges against Mr Taylor include terrorising the civilian population, murder, sexual violence, physical violence, using child soldiers, enslavement and looting. Mr Taylor denies them all.
Human rights campaigners hope the trial will send a signal that nobody can escape punishment for atrocities, including heads of state, although some would have preferred him to be tried at home by his countrymen.
Who is Sebutinde?
Justice Sebutinde, a British-trained lawyer, has had an illustrious career in Uganda since being called to the bar in 1979. She was appointed judge of the High Court in 1996. However she is better known as the head of three high level commissions of inquiry she conducted on behalf of the government between 1999 and 2001.
She courted controversy with her tough handling of witnesses in investigations into corruption in the Uganda Police Force, the purchase of junk helicopters by the Ministry of Defence as well as graft in the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). During the URA inquiry, armed gunmen attacked her residence at night and a 30-minute gun battle with her guards ensued.
Taylor's rise and fall
Mr Taylor started Liberia's civil war in 1989 and became one of a number of warlords competing for control in the West African country.
He later emerged as Liberia's most powerful politician and won the 1997 presidential election that ended the war there. Liberians voted him in power not because he was popular but for fear that he could make the country ungovernable.
In 1991, one of Mr Taylor's comrades-in-arms, Foday Sankoh, started his own rebellion in Sierra Leone.
The prosecution claims Mr Taylor provided the Revolutionary United Front (Ruf) leader with training, money, arms and ammunition to start the rebellion and even lent him fighters to take part in the initial attack.
The Ruf became notorious for hacking off the hands and legs of civilians during their decade-long war. The war claimed over 60,000 lives.
However, the rebellion in Sierra Leone collapsed. Its war crimes court indicted the rebel leaders and Mr Taylor as well. Sankoh died in 2003.
That year, Mr Taylor himself lost power in Liberia after rival militias rose up and forced him into exile in Nigeria.
He was deported by Nigeria last year in controversial circumstances and flown to The Hague to await his trial.
Mr Taylor follows in the footsteps of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who was the first ever head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international court.
Milosevic died on March 11, 2006 in the same prison in The Hague where Mr Taylor is now being held, while his trial was still under way before the UN court for the former Yugoslavia.
In the run-up to the trial, Mr Taylor's defence lawyer Karim Khan repeatedly complained that he did not have enough time or resources to properly prepare for the trial.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
