Ten men charged with plotting to overthrow Sierra Leone's government last year were convicted Monday of treason and sentenced to death by hanging.  Friends and relatives of the condemned men wailed and wept outside the heavily guarded court gates after the 11-man jury found the defendants guilty and the judge ordered them to the gallows. "You will be taken from here to a place of lawful prison and thence to a place of execution and there suffer death by hanging," said Judge Bankole Raschid, after a court crier replaced his white jurists' wig with a black skull cap. "May the Lord have mercy on your soul."
| Wonder if Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International will object? |
The 10, including ex-army officers and rebels who fought during Sierra Leone's brutal 1991-2002 war, have 21 days to appeal. Another defendant was given 10 years in prison on a lesser, related charge. Security forces captured the men after a Jan. 13, 2003, shootout at a military base in what prosecutors called an attempt to capture weapons for an attempt to overthrow President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah's government.In 2001, Sierra Leone held successful elections signaling its recovery from a 10-year civil war that was launched by rebels fighting to win control of the west African nation and its diamond fields. U.N., British and Guinean forces quelled the rebels in 2000, and the government declared the war over in January 2001. A U.N.-backed court is trying rebel and government fighters for war crimes in a conflict that saw insurgents amputating civilians limbs with machetes. |