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FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) - A U.N.-backed court on Friday upheld the convictions of three former rebel leaders sentenced last year to half-century prison terms for rape, murder and other war crimes committed during Sierra Leone's decade-long conflict.
The three were leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, a junta that overthrew an elected government in 1997 and was ousted by Nigerian-led peacekeepers the following year.
Their convictions in July were the first handed down by Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal — and the first by any international court on the conscription of child soldiers, who were often drugged and forced into battle during the West African country's 1991-2002 war.
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