After nearly two months of questioning in the Hague, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has temporarily adjourned the Defense’s questioning of former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor, due to the illness of lead counsel Courtenay Griffiths QC.
The SCSL, an ad hoc international-national court – or ‘hybrid’ tribunal – was established by the government of Sierra Leone and the UN to prosecute violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law committed during part of Sierra Leone’s eleven year civil war, where the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)/Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) rebel alliance committed mass atrocities, including murder, mutilation, amputation, torture, rape and forced abductions. Civilian Defense Forces (CDF) militias fighting on behalf of the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah also committed numerous human rights violations.
Taylor was President of Liberia during much of this time, and is alleged to have been a major backer of the RUF, to have had links with senior leaders in the RUF and the AFRC, and to have been responsible for Liberian forces fighting in support of the Sierra Leonean rebels. His ongoing trial, though part of the SCSL, was moved to the facilities of the ICC in The Hague due to concerns about regional stability.
Taylor is now charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including terrorism, murder, sexual violence, physical violence, use of child soldiers, enslavement and looting. After Slobodan Milosevic, who died while on trial before the ICTY in 2006, Taylor is only the second head of state to be indicted by an international tribunal while in office.
Over the last few months, Taylor has testified that, among other things, he was too busy with goings-on in Liberia to be supporting the RUF in Sierra Leone, that the CIA were involved in his 1985 jailbreak from a US prison, and that his government was not involved in the diamond trade with RUF rebels. However, when his defense counsel fell ill, further testimony was postponed. The court ruled that if Mr Griffiths could not appear at court in a few days, a substitute lawyer would need to appear and continue Taylor’s questioning.
And lawyers aren’t only going missing on the defense side – next week the SCSL’s Office of the Prosecutor loses its Chief Prosecutor to the Obama administration.
Stephen Rapp, appointed to the SCSL by Kofi Annan in 2006, will leave the court to assume the post of US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues. In a recent Q&A session, Rapp talked not only about the past machinations of the SCSL, but also his vision of the US’ role in the future of international justice.
Hopefully the SCSL can quickly move past the temporary loss of Mr Griffiths and the permanent loss of Ambassador Rapp, and eventually serve as a concrete model for prosecuting a head of state for alleged war crimes on the international scene.
