Death penalty for Sierra Leone rebel leader
By Allieu Ibrahim Kamara
FREETOWN, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's High Court sentenced rebel leader
Foday Sankoh to death for treason on Friday, sparking celebrations across the
capital.
``You shall be taken from here to some place of maximum security where you
shall be hanged by the neck until you die,'' Judge Samuel Ademosu told Sankoh.
Sankoh, 60, convicted in connection with a May 1997 coup that ousted elected
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah for 10 months, requested a lawyer and said he
planned to appeal.
Twenty-four soldiers were executed and 11 civilians sentenced to death this
week for involvement in the coup.
A 12-member jury found Sankoh, a former army corporal, guilty on seven of nine
counts of treason for being involved in the coup and helping to entrench the
military junta that supplanted Kabbah.
A Nigerian-led West African force ejected the junta from the capital Freetown
in February and reinstated Kabbah in March.
Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front rebels, who took up arms in 1991 and
rallied to the coup after a short-lived peace deal with Kabbah unravelled,
remain active upcountry, particularly in the east and north.
Sankoh, who defended himself in the absence of willing lawyers, asked the
judge not to be too harsh with him.
``I am appealing to your worship to be lenient with me,'' he said.
Judge Ademosu told Sankoh he was sentencing him to death as a deterrent to
others and to take account of atrocities committed by Armed Forces Ruling
Council (AFRC) fighters, who have hacked off civilians' limbs and gouged out
eyes in raids across the country.
``Had you not given the order for your rebels to come out of the bush and join
forces with the AFRC, the atrocities could have been averted,'' the judge
said.
People mutilated by the rebels were among thousands of people celebrating in
the street after the announcement of the sentence.
``I thank God that he has kept me alive to see this day. Foday Sankoh and his
rebels hanged my husband before me and shot dead our seven children -- five
girls and two boys -- and burnt down our village, Baiama, when they attacked
it in 1995,'' fish seller Musu Konneh told Reuters in a Freetown market.
Sankoh, who denied the charges, was in detention in Nigeria at the time of the
coup but was named the number two in the junta led by Johnny Paul Koroma, who
is now on the run.
Nigeria flew back Sankoh to face trial after Kabbah was reinstated.
Sierra Leone executed 24 soldiers in public by firing squad on Monday after
conviction by court martial. Unlike people found guilty by civil courts, the
soldiers had no right of appeal and international calls for clemency fell of
deaf ears.
The High Court sentenced 11 civilians, including a woman aged 75, to death on
Wednesday.
Soldiers from the ECOMOG West African force led Sankoh manacled from the dock
to his place of detention, which remains secret. He left the court singing.
17:23 10-23-98
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