Liberian former leader Charles Taylor awaits a verdict tomorrow on charges of arming Sierra Leone’s rebels in the 1990s in return for blood diamonds.

His fighters strung human intestines across roads and practised cannibalism... the President was seen eating human liver

Three judges will announce the historic decision − the first verdict against a former head of state by an international court − at 11.a.m. (0900 GMT) at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Leidschendam outside The Hague.

Mr Taylor, 64, is accused of helping Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front wage a terror campaign during a civil war that claimed 120,000 lives between 1991 and 2001.

The trial, which saw model Naomi Campbell testify she had received diamonds from the flamboyant Taylor, wrapped up in March 2011.

Prosecutors alleged that the RUF paid Mr Taylor with illegally mined, so-called blood diamonds worth millions, stuffed into mayonnaise jars.

“He was really key in people’s minds as to who was accountable for what happened,” Elise Keppler, who monitored the trial for Human Rights Watch, said this week.

She added: “He is a former head of state, the first to hear a judgment against himself: it is unprecedented, it is a historic moment.”

During the trial, prosecutor Brenda Hollis told the court: “Charles Taylor created, armed, supported and controlled the RUF in a 10-year campaign of terror against the civil population of Sierra Leone.”

As President of neighbouring Liberia, he acted as “chief, father and godfather to his proxy rebel forces in Sierra Leone,” prosecutors added, saying the RUF was a terrorist army created, supported and directed by him.

The former warlord has pleaded not guilty, dismissing the allegations as lies and claiming to be the victim of a plot by powerful countries.

The rebels, often high on drugs, murdered, raped and maimed their victims, notably amputating hands and arms with machetes.

SCSL spokesman Solomon Moriba said that if Mr Taylor is convicted his sentencing will take place four to six weeks later, but Mr Moriba declined to say how many years behind bars he might face, saying only that the judges would decide based on the severity of the crimes.

The court, set up jointly by the Sierra Leone government and the United Nations, has already convicted eight Sierra Leoneans of war crimes and jailed them for between 15 and 52 years after trials in the West African country’s capital Freetown, Mr Moriba noted.

During Mr Taylor’s three-and-a-half-year trial, some 94 witnesses took the stand for the prosecution and 21 for the defence. Mr Taylor himself testified for 81 hours. British supermodel Naomi Campbell and actress Mia Farrow gave headline-grabbing evidence in August 2010 about a gift of “dirty” diamonds Mr Taylor gave to Ms Campbell at a charity dinner hosted by then South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997.

Judges heard gruesome testimony from victims of the Sierra Leone conflict, including a witness who said he pleaded with RUF rebels to cut off his remaining hand so they would spare his toddler son.

Others said Mr Taylor’s fighters strung human intestines across roads, removed foetuses from women’s wombs and practised cannibalism, while children younger than 15 were enlisted to fight.

One witness said he was present when the Liberian leader ate human liver.

During his own testimony, which began in July 2009, Mr Taylor called the trial a sham and denied allegations he ever ate human flesh.

He did, however, say he saw no problem with the fact that human skulls were being displayed at military checkpoints in Sierra Leone.

Nigerian authorities arrested Mr Taylor in March 2006 when he tried to flee from exile in Nigeria after stepping down as Liberian President three years earlier in a negotiated end to a civil war in his own country.

He was transferred to the SCSL in Freetown, but in June 2006 a UN Security Council Resolution cleared the way for him to be transferred to The Hague, saying his presence in West Africa was an “impediment to stability and a threat to the peace.”

Heads of state pursued by international courts

• Charles Taylor: The former Liberian President, who ruled from 1997-2003, was charged in March 2003 with war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the 1991-2001 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Elected President in 1997, Mr Taylor resigned in August 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria where he was arrested in March 2006.

• Laurent Ggabo: The former Ivory Coast President was arrested in April 2011 and transferred to the International Criminal Court’s detention unit in The Hague on November 30. He is currently facing charges of crimes against humanity following the unrest which rocked the country between December 2010 and April 2011 in which 3,000 people died.

• Omar Al-Bashir: The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr Bashir, the current President of Sudan, in March 2009. The charges relate to alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur, the country’s western region where 300,000 people died. In July 2010 the court added genocide to the charges.

• Muammar Gaddafi: The former Libyan leader, killed by rebels on October 20, 2011, had been sought by the ICC under a warrant issued in June 2011.Gaddafi was wanted for crimes against humanity committed on his behalf by the country’s security forces as they put down a popular revolt, which turned into a civil war and ended with his ousting.

• Slobodan Milosevic: Elected President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in July 1997, Milosevic was indicted in May 1999 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia between 1991 and 1999. He died in his cell in The Hague.

• Milan Milutinovic: The President of Serbia from December 1997 to December 2002, Milutinovic was indicted by the ICTY in May 1999 and surrendered to the tribunal in January 2003. He was acquitted in February 2009 of war crimes committed in Kosovo following a trial that started in July 2006.

• Khieu Samphan: Former Cambodian head of state Khieu Samphan was arrested in 2007 and charged with genocide by a UN court. He was a key member of the central committee of the Khmer Rouge regime that oversaw the deaths of up to two million people by starvation, overwork, torture and execution. He went on trial in November 2011 at Cambodia’s UN-backed court.