FREETOWN (AFP) — Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal will hand down a verdict next week in the trial of three former rebel leaders accused of ordering atrocities during the 1991-2001 civil war, the court said Thursday.
The leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao, face 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape, sexual enslavement, cruel treatment, using child soldiers and attacks on UN soldiers.
They have all pleaded not guilty before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
On Wednesday the judges are expected to rule whether the defendants are guilty. If they are convicted, a special hearing will follow to determine sentencing.
Prosecutors say RUF fighters committed numerous atrocities during Sierra Leone's bloody 1991-2001 civil war.
By the time the conflict ended some 120,000 people were killed and tens of thousands of others had been mutilated, their arms, legs, noses or ears chopped off.
At the opening of the trial in June 2004 prosecutor David Crane called the indictment against the men "a tale of horror" and said the RUF leaders were "dogs of war, hounds of hell".
During the trial prosecutors painted a picture of the RUF rebels involved in a joint criminal enterprise together with former Liberian president Charles Taylor in order to get control over the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to finance their warfare. The so-called blood diamonds harvested by the rebels through violence and intimidation were traded for military and financial support.
"Blood diamonds are the common thread that bound together this criminal enterprise. The rule of the gun reigned supreme," Crane said.
Prosecution witnesses testified at length about the RUF rebels' atrocities. They told horrific tales of murder, rape, men and women taken by the rebels and forced to work in the RUF-controlled diamond fields, while women were used as sex slaves.
They also spoke of the so-called Small Boys Units, boys forcibly recruited by the rebels and issued with small lightweight guns like AK-47's and often given marijuana, cocaine or brown-brown (heroin) to prepare them for battle.
These units of boys aged between ten and fifteen had a reputation of particular cruelty among the civilian population.
The three RUF leaders were initially indicted along with the RUF's founder and close Taylor ally Foday Sankoh but he died in custody before the case ever came to trial.
Charles Taylor is currently on trial in a separate case before the Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting in The Hague for those proceedings. He faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Sesay, Kallon and Gbao have been on trial since June 2004 and closing arguments in the case were heard in August 2008 after judges heard testimony from 170 witnesses.
The defence says the men are not responsible for the atrocities and Sesay's lawyers in particular tried to cast him as a peacemaker because he signed the Lome peace agreement which ended the war.
Witnesses presented by the defence countered the prosecution allegations of widescale atrocities and said that in areas controlled by the RUF leaders there was safety and security. According to one witness, Kallon even shared his food with the hungry villages.
The RUF case is the last of the three special court trials held in Freetown. The only trial still ongoing before the Sierra Leone tribunal is the Taylor trial which has been moved to The Hague for security reasons.
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