The Hague, Netherlands

Liberian dictator on trial: Gruesome tales of rape and dismemberment dominated the first day of testimony at the war-crimes trial of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor this week. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court allege that Taylor orchestrated the smuggling of “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone and used the profits to arm the brutal rebels in that country’s 1991–2001 civil war. The court watched a video of maimed survivors telling how the rebels, many of them children themselves, hacked off the limbs of women and children and forced people to labor in diamond mines. One survivor said the Sierra Leonean rebels who held him referred to Taylor as “boss.” Taylor was forced into exile in 2003 and arrested in Nigeria in 2006.

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