Ex-Taylor aide tells of atrocities
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Former Liberian President Charles Taylor ordered his militias to eat the flesh of captured enemies and United Nations soldiers, a former close aide testified at Taylor’s war crimes trial in The Hague.
Joseph “ZigZag” Marzah, who described himself as Taylor’s former death squad commander, gave graphic details of atrocities in Liberia and Sierra Leone at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. He has described how he killed so many men, women and children that he lost count, and said he had slit open the stomachs of pregnant women on Taylor’s orders.
Taylor, once one of Africa’s most feared warlords, faces charges of rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers during a 1991-2002 conflict. He has pleaded not guilty.
More than 250,000 people died in intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Prosecutors say Taylor wanted to plunder neighboring Sierra Leone’s diamonds and destabilize its government by controlling and arming rebels.
Taylor’s attorneys said Marzah was lying.
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