Child soldiers serving with rebels in Sierra Leone dismembered a screaming child before tossing him in a toilet pit, a pastor testified during the trial of Charles Taylor today.
The former Liberian president is on trial in the Hague for orchestrating rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers during the 1991-2002 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor
Alex Tamba Teh (47) told the UN backed Special Court for Sierra Leone how he saw a rebel commander from Liberia he called "Rocky" shoot 101 people. Rocky spared his life only because he was a pastor, he said.
"After he killed the civilians . . . he gave the instruction that they should be decapitated. Rocky gave the order to the small boy units," Mr Tamba Teh told the court, referring to the gangs of child soldiers used by rebels during the war.
On the second day of prosecution evidence, Mr Tamba Teh recounted how rebels voted on whether to spare his life and how they carved the initials RUF into the bodies of abductees.
Child soldiers rounded on one child and chopped off his hand, then his arm, then both his feet, before tossing him into a toilet pit, Mr Tamba Teh said. Showing the court his mouth, he explained how a rebel knocked out his teeth with a pistol.
Prosecutors say Taylor sought to plunder Sierra Leone's diamond wealth and destabilise its government by supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.
Taylor (59), the first former African head of state to face an international court, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Earlier, the court heard from blood diamond expert Ian Smillie, who said the RUF used brutality to frighten people away from diamond fields that earned them up to $125 million a year.