Recently, though, authorities in several nations — though notably not Liberia — have charged some of the wartime leaders, many of whom are awaiting trials. The case made him the first former head of state convicted by an international tribunal since the Nuremberg trials in Germany after World War II. However, Taylor’s charges stemmed from atrocities committed during a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. He was born in the U.S., and his case was the first use of a 1994 American law allowing for the prosecution of U.S. citizens for acts of torture committed abroad. Prosecutors maintain that Woewiyu served as the U.S. spokesman for Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia during the second civil war.

Source: GNN Liberia September 30, 2017 09:11 UTC