The Hague has found former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor guilty of aiding rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in a bloody civil war that left 50,000 dead. The judge said that the warlord provided arms and communications equipment to the rebels in return for blood diamonds. Taylor, the court ruled, is guilty of aiding and abetting terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, cruelty, and conscripting child soldiers. However prosecutors failed to prove he had command of the rebels, and he was acquitted of commanding the militias. He's the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials.
In this image, Charles Taylor stands with a group of rebels after taking control of the United States’ OMEGA radio navigation station in Paynesville, Liberia, on July 12, 1990. Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) launched a revolt against President Samuel Doe in 1989, which resulted in civil war that dragged on until 1996.