The week at a glance...International

International

Freetown, Sierra Leone

Taylor gets 50: Survivors of the Sierra Leonean civil war celebrated this week as former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison. “That makes me the happiest person on earth,” said Alimami Kanu, who had his right hand hacked off at age 11 by the brutal rebels Taylor funded and trained. An international court in April found Taylor guilty of war crimes for aiding and abetting the Revolutionary United Front rebels, who murdered and mutilated tens of thousands of people during the 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002. Judge Richard Lussick said the rebels’ atrocities, which included hacking off villagers’ arms and legs and cutting open pregnant women to settle bets over the sex of their babies, were “some of the most heinous crimes in human history.” Taylor, 80, will be held in the Netherlands until his appeal is over and will serve his sentence in the U.K.

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