Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor is due in court in Sierra Leone today charged with backing rebels who mutilated and raped civilians during the country's civil war.
Taylor faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for helping to start and fostering more than a decade of conflict in Sierra Leone. In the conflict, civilians were routinely hacked to death, and children were abducted to fight.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is surrounded by UN peacekeepers as he arrives in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Taylor (58) fled Liberia three years ago as rebels closed in on the capital Monrovia.
Taylor, known simply as "Pappy" to a generation of child soldiers, was flown handcuffed and surrounded by peacekeepers to the UN-backed Special Court in Freetown last week, after nearly three years in exile in Nigeria.
"The people of Sierra Leone have waited a long time to see this man brought to trial," chief prosecutor Desmond de Silva said. "The victims have the right to see one of the principle perpetrators . . . of violations of their human rights in this country brought to justice."
There are fears Taylor's trial could trigger instability in a fragile region, and the court's president has asked The Netherlands to hold the bulk of his trial in The Hague.
Taylor started a rebellion in Liberia to overthrow then-president Samuel Doe in 1989. The uprising turned into a 14-year on-off civil war in which 250,000 people were killed.
He was elected president of Liberia in 1997 but left for exile in Nigeria in 2003 in the face of a rebellion against him and pressure from the United States and West African leaders.
He is expected to plead not guilty to charges accusing him of training, financing and arming rebels who carried out the initial attacks that launched Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war before looting their way through villages.