Concord Times (Freetown)
Joseph Cheeseman
10 October 2008
Hague — A former child soldier has testified to the torture, enslavement and murder of civilians by Sierra Leone's RUF rebels allegedly supported by the indicted former Liberian president, Charles Taylor.
Captured by rebels at age 12, Komba Sumana gave a vivid account of his ordeal saying he was captured by people he identified as Liberian English-speaking men commanded by one Major Wallace formerly of Alhaji Kromah's ULIMO rebel group.
Sumana, who is now in his early 20s, is the 51st prosecution witness. He told the court that he hid in a forest when he saw the rebels pour boiling water on the head of a man who had just got a new hair cut, simply because he failed to produce rice as the rebels had demanded.
Mr. Sumana testified to the invasion of their hiding place by six AK-47-toting rebels whom he said spoke Mende and Liberian English. He recalled that his father, mother, and other captives under gun point carried looted goods for the rebels.
The witness described to the court his recruitment into the rebel faction along with 200 captives which included being taken on a three-week walk to Kailahun for training. He said a Liberian woman he could only identify as Monica trained them in various manners of warfare. "They trained us how to attack a town, how to burn a house, how to take over a town" he said. Under cross-examination by the prosecution, Sumana said that they were badly treated as they were beaten and starved.
Once they had passed out from the training Sumana went on, the rebel battlefield commander Sam Mosquito Bockarie gave them AK-47 riffles, RPG bombs and other weapons. He told the judges that during the distribution of the arms he saw some men dressed in military uniform and wore red caps. He told the court that one of the fighters identified the men as Liberians. "There was one rebel who was standing close to me at the time I was standing in the line. I asked him about the soldiers who had come and he said to me that they were Charles Taylor's soldiers".
Sumana told the judges that his father was amputated and his elder brother was killed by the rebels.
Crime against humanity which includes murder, cruel treatment, and rape are some of the charges against Charles Taylor.
Courtesy: BBC World Service Trust
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