United Kingdom signs sentencing deal with UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone

The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has reached an agreement with the United Kingdom that will mean the notorious former Liberian president Charles Taylor will be imprisoned in the UK if he is convicted on war crimes charges.

The SCSL’s Acting Registrar Herman von Hebel signed the sentence enforcement agreement earlier this week, the Court said in a press release issued yesterday from Freetown. The SCSL has already signed similar pacts with Sweden and Austria.

Mark Malloch Brown, the Minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government and a former UN Deputy Secretary-General, signed the accord on behalf of the UK.

“I pay tribute to the Court’s work in bringing to justice those accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Sierra Leone’s civil war,” he said. “This is making a major contribution to the cause of international justice and is an essential part of the process of restoring and maintaining stability in Sierra Leone.”

Mr. Taylor is facing 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including mass murder, mutilations, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers, for his role in the decade-long civil war that engulfed Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia.

The trial, which began last month, is expected to run until December 2008, with a judgement likely by mid-2009. Prosecutors have indicated they plan to call up to 139 core witnesses.

A year ago the Security Council authorized the staging of Mr. Taylor’s trial at The Hague in the Netherlands, citing reasons of security and expediency. Although the trial will be held at the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it will remain under the exclusive jurisdiction of the SCSL.

Mr. Malloch Brown called on the international community to maintain its support, “financial and otherwise,” for the Court so that it can “continue to make clear that there can be no impunity for those would commit these most serious crimes.”

The Court was established in January 2002 by an agreement between the Sierra Leonean Government and the UN and is mandated to try “those who bear greatest responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against community committed in the country after 30 November 1996.