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2012-04-27 17:14

Taylor conviction and the fates of other leaders



Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted Thursday of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting brutal rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in return for ``blood diamonds.'' Taylor is the first head of state convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremberg military tribunal.

He is part of a long parade of modern leaders accused of war crimes. Here is what happened to some others:

LAURENT GBAGBO
The former Ivory Coast president is also jailed in The Hague awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The crimes were allegedly committed as he attempted to cling to power last year after losing a presidential election.

OMAR AL-BASHIR
The ICC accused the Sudanese president of orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur and issued an arrest warrant for him. However, he remains free in Sudan, which is locked into hostilities with South Sudan. The U.N. estimates that 300,000 people died and 2.7 million were displaced in the Darfur conflict.

MOAMMAR GADHAFI
Libya's leader became the first ruler killed in the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011. He ruled for nearly 42 years with an eccentric brutality, turning Libya into an isolated pariah, then an oil power courted by the West, then back again. The rebels who toppled him were backed by a NATO bombing campaign.

SADDAM HUSSEIN
The former Iraqi dictator was hanged at age 69 in 2006 after an Iraqi trial. His brutality kept him in power through war with Iran, defeat in Kuwait, rebellions by northern Kurds and southern Shiite Muslims and international sanctions. A U.S.-led invasion drove him from power in 2003.

GEN. AUGUSTO PINOCHET
The former Chilean president died in 2006 at age 91 in a military hospital, ending a decade of intensifying efforts to bring him to trial for human rights abuses blamed on his regime. He had terrorized his opponents for 17 years after taking power in a bloody coup in 1973.

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
The former Serb leader was found dead in 2006 in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands. That abruptly ended his four-year U.N. war crimes trial for orchestrating a decade of conflict in the Balkans which left 250,000 dead and the Yugoslav federation torn asunder. He was 64.

IDI AMIN
Uganda's deposed dictator lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until his death around the age of 80 in 2003. His regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. His cruel, extravagant ways led to social disintegration and economic decline in his landlocked African nation.

POL POT
The toppled Khmer Rouge leader died in the Cambodian jungle at age 73 in 1998, cheating pursuers who believed they were days away from capturing him for prosecution in the deaths of as many as 2 million countrymen. He ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, seeking to create a Marxist agrarian regime but leaving one person in five dead of starvation, illness or execution.

ADOLF HITLER
The Nazi dictator, who committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in 1945, was responsible for the Holocaust and the deaths of millions during World War II.

KARL DOENITZ
The only other head of state convicted by an international court. The Nazi naval commander briefly led Germany after Adolf Hitler's suicide and was convicted by a military tribunal at Nuremberg after World War II.

RADOVAN KARADZIC
Prosecutors at the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal are close to wrapping up their case against the former Bosnian Serb leader. He is charged with genocide and other war crimes stemming from Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. (AP)




관련 한글기사


국가원수 전범자들 지금 어디서 뭐하나

찰스 테일러(64) 전 라이베리아 대통령이 26일 국제형사재판소(ICC) 시에라리온 특별법정에서 전쟁범죄 및 반 인륜범죄로 유죄 판결을 받았다.

2차 대전 전범을 처벌하기 위해 열렸던 뉘른베르크 재판 이후 국가원수가 전범으로 유죄판결을 받기는 처음이다.

슬로보단 밀로셰비치 전 세르비아 대통령, 오마르 알 바쉬르 수단 대통령 등 전범자로 지목됐던 대표적인 전현직 국가원수들은 지금 어디에 있으며, 그들에 대한 단죄는 어떻게 진행되고 있을까?

◇ 로랑 그바그보 전 코트디부아르 대통령 = 전쟁범죄 및 반 인륜범죄 혐의로 네덜란드 헤이그에 수감돼 있으며 재판을 기다리고 있다. 지난해 대선에서 패배한 뒤 집권 연장을 위해 반 인륜범죄를 저지른 것으로 지목되고 있다.

◇ 오마르 알-바시르 수단 대통령 = ICC는 그가 다이푸르에서 저지른 학살, 반인륜범죄, 전쟁범죄와 관련해 체포 영장을 발부한 상태다. 다이푸르에서는 30여만명이 숨지고, 270만명이 피난한 것으로 유엔은 파악하고 있다. 현직을 유지하고 있다.

◇ 무아마르 카다피 전 리비아 국가원수 = 지난해 중동을 휩쓸었던 민주화 민중 봉기 때 국가원수로는 처음으로 살해당했다. 42년 동안 집권하면서 정치적, 군사적 잔혹행위를 한 것으로 알려져 있다.

◇ 사담 후세인 전 이라크 대통령 = 미-이라크 전쟁 중 2003년 권좌에서 쫓겨나 2006년 재판 후 교수형을 당했다.

◇ 아우구스토 피노체트 전 칠레 대통령 = 1973년 군사 쿠데타로 집권한 뒤 17년 동안 독재자로 군림하면서 수천명이 정치적 이유로 살해되거나 실종됐다. 국제사회는 오랫동안 그를 전범재판소에 세우려 했으나 2006년 군병원에서 91세로 숨졌다.

◇ 슬로보단 밀로셰비치 전 세르비아 대통령 = 10여년간 지속되면서 25만여명이 숨졌던 발칸반도 분쟁을 주도한 인물로 4년동안 헤이그에서 전범 재판을 받다가 2005년 옥중 사망했다.

◇ 이디 아민 전 우간다 대통령 = 쿠데타로 집권한 뒤 장기집권을 위해 수십만명을 학살한 것으로 알려져 있다. 사우디아라비아에서 망명생활을 하다 2003년 80세로 숨졌다.

◇ 폴 포트 전 캄보디아 총리 = 크메르 루주 지도자로 75년부터 79년까지 캄보디아를 통치했으며 그가 집권하는 동안 200여만명이 숙청당하거나 기아, 질병으로 숨졌다. 1998년 캄보디아 정글에서 73세로 숨졌다.

◇ 라도반 카라지치 = 보스니아 세르비아계 지도자로 92-95년 보스니아 전쟁 때 학살과 전쟁범죄를 저질러 현재 재판을 받고 있으며, 재판은 막바지 단계이다. (AP=연합뉴스)


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