The worst outbreak of Ebola moved to Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown.
Sidie Yahya Tunis, director of Information, Communication and Technology at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, said: “The Ebola disease usually spreads to other places when suspected or confirmed cases in one community move to another, they abandon treatment centers to stay with relatives or they seek treatment outside the Ebola centers.”
There have been 99 Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone out of 315 laboratory-confirmed cases, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement today. The ministry said yesterday that 92 people had died out of 305 cases. Cases of the hemorrhagic fever have killed more than 540 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in an outbreak that according to the World Health Organization may last another three to four months.
The toll is greater than the 280 people killed in 1976, when the virus was first identified near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The rapid spread of the virus is largely due to people moving across African borders as well as cultural practices that are contrary to public health guidelines, such as people touching the body of a deceased relative before the funeral.
Victims of the bloody regime of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor spoke of their relief after his 50-year jail term for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone was upheld by an international court on Thursday.
The final verdict handed down by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) draws a line under a seven-year trial of the 65-year-old former Liberian president, sentenced in May last year for “some of the most heinous crimes in human history”.
“As a government, we believe that justice has been done and impunity is over,” Sierra Leone government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay told AFP.
“The message for sitting heads of state not only in Africa but beyond is that when you are in power you must exercise it judiciously, have respect for the rule of law and human rights and uphold the dignity of others.”
Around 100 people, including human rights activists and survivors of the Sierra Leone civil war, watched a live broadcast of the ruling in the capital Freetown.
For Sullay Turay, who lost a hand and a foot to Taylor-backed rebels, the outcome “showed that no matter what you do, justice will finally catch up with you and this is what has happened in Taylor’s case.”
The former warlord, who was jailed initially for 50 years for arming rebels during Sierra Leone’s brutal 1990s civil war, is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars, possibly in a British jail.
He sparked a 13-year civil war in his own country when he led a rebellion in 1989 to oust President Samuel Doe which deteriorated into one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts.
His National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) earned a reputation for extreme violence, conscripting child soldiers and terrorising citizens of certain ethnic groups.
After taking Monrovia, Taylor was elected president in 1997, but violence again erupted in 1999 when another rebellion started and he lost control of much of the country, fleeing in 2003 to Nigeria.
The conflicts resulted in 270,000 deaths, with many civilians displaced and several thousand becoming victims of atrocities, according to the United Nations.
As Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003, Taylor supported Revolutionary United Front rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone by supplying them with guns and ammunition as they waged a campaign of terror during a civil war that claimed 120,000 lives between 1991 and 2002.
He was finally arrested and transferred to The Hague in 2006, where he was convicted in 2012 of aiding and abetting the rebels during the conflict, known for its mutilations, drugged child soldiers and sex slaves, trial judges found.
“Full justice has now been done and the victims should move on with their lives. The violations they suffered have been addressed through the judicial process,” said Ibrahim Tommy, chairman of the Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law campaign group.
“The government now should work to strengthen the justice system and work for the socio-economic prosperity of the victims.”
Some victims of the conflict remain bitter and voiced frustration that Taylor had not received the 80-year sentence requested by the prosecution.
“Let Taylor rot in jail. I only wish he would have served his sentence in an African prison to suffer the more,” said Freetown taxi driver Andrew Lebbie.
But there was also a note of reconciliation among the crowd gathered for the ruling in Freetown.
“Forgiveness is all I would ask for. The court should have tempered justice with mercy,” said vicar Sam Fergusson.
But Taylor has never been charged for his role in Liberia’s bloody history, only that in neighbouring Sierra Leone. – AFP
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor will hear Thursday whether appeals judges uphold or overturn his landmark conviction and 50-year sentence for aiding murderous rebels in Sierra Leone’s civil war.
Taylor, 65, became the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II when the Special Court for Sierra Leone found him guilty on April 26, 2012, of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including terrorism, murder, rape and using child soldiers.
Judges said he provided crucial aid to rebels and helped plan attacks in return for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers in Sierra Leone and political influence in the volatile West African region. His conviction was hailed as ushering in a new era of accountability for heads of state.
“The trial and judgment of Charles Taylor sets out a clear marker that even those at the highest levels of power can be held to account,” Elise Keppler, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “The Taylor trial, and the Sierra Leone Special Court’s work overall, have made a major contribution to justice for brutal crimes committed during Sierra Leone’s conflict.”
About 50,000 people died in the 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. Thousands more were left mutilated in a conflict that became known for the extreme cruelty of rival rebel groups who gained international notoriety for hacking off the limbs of their victims and carving their groups’ initials into opponents. The rebels developed gruesome terms for the mutilations that became their chilling trademark: They would offer their victims the choice of “long sleeves” or “short sleeves” – having their hands hacked off or their arms sliced off above the elbow.
Taylor was convicted not only of aiding and abetting Sierra Leone rebels from Liberia, but also for actually planning some of the attacks carried out by Sierra Leone rebel groups, the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
It isn’t clear if the Sierra Leone court’s appeal panel will take into account a February appeals judgment by the U.N. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal that acquitted the former chief of staff of the Yugoslav National Army, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, of aiding forces fighting in a neighboring country. Perisic was freed after appeals judges said it hadn’t been proven that he sent supplies to Bosnian Serb forces with the “specific intent” that they be used to commit atrocities.
The ruling was seen as raising the bar on the level of proof needed to uphold such aiding and abetting charges, though the Sierra Leone court isn’t bound to follow in the Yugoslav tribunal’s footsteps.
Taylor’s lawyers say he should be acquitted on all counts. Prosecutors asked appeals judges to rule that he was even more closely involved in the crimes in Sierra Leone than was laid out in his original conviction and urged judges to increase Taylor’s sentence to 80 years, saying the 50-year sentence wasn’t “reflective of the inherent gravity of the totality of his criminal conduct and overall culpability.”
If Taylor’s sentence is upheld, he will be transferred to Britain, which has agreed to provide a cell for him.
Taylor’s trial was moved from the Special Court of Sierra Leone’s headquarters in the capital, Freetown, to the Netherlands because of fears it could destabilize the West African region if held in Sierra Leone.
The Taylor appeals ruling will be the final judgment at the court, which indicted 13 of the main architects of the atrocities in Sierra Leone. Two died before trial and one more remains unaccounted for and possibly dead. Another died before hearing a verdict and all the others were tried and convicted.
The court’s trial chamber in Freetown will be converted to house Sierra Leone’s Supreme Court in the future. Another part of the court is being turned into a peace museum and its detention facility has been put to use as a prison by local authorities. – AP
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