Sierra Leone ex-rebels leave to be jailed in Rwanda: court

Eight former Sierra Leone rebels convicted of civil war atrocities left the country in a UN chartered plane Saturday to serve their prison sentences in Rwanda, a court spokesman said.

"The eight convicts of the Special Court for Sierra Leone left shortly after 0400 GMT on a UN chartered plane to Kigali, Rwanda," spokesman Peter Andersen told AFP.

He added that the men -- three former leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), three ex-leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and two wartime leaders of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) -- would be imprisoned in a special wing of Rwanda's Mpanga prison.

The wing was specifically built to house those convicted by the separate Tanzanian-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which hears cases against those accused in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

In March the Rwanda tribunal signed a deal with the Special Court for Sierra Leone agreeing to house the Sierra Leonean convicts, who cannot serve their sentences in the west African country as it has no jails up to the international standards that the UN-backed tribunal requires.

Before the transfer Saturday afternoon several of the convicts tried a last ditch attempt to stop their move to Kigali.

On a cellphone smuggled into prison three of the ex-rebels called a local radio station pleading for forgiveness and urging the people of Sierra Leone to call on the government and the international community not to send them to Rwanda.

Former RUF leaders Hassan Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon together with AFRC leader Brima Bazzy Kamara told the Voice of the Handicapped radio station that they were worried that no one will speak English in Rwanda and that there are no provisions for their families to visit them.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone was established by the United Nations in 2002 to try those who bear "the greatest responsibility" for the atrocities during the 1991-2001 civil war.

The conflict, financed largely by so-called blood diamonds, left 120,000 people dead and tens of thousands mutilated.

The court convicted leaders of the three main factions in the civil war. On Monday the tribunal in Freetown handed down its last ever ruling when the appeals chamber upheld a 52-year prison term against Sesay as well as a 40-year sentence for Kallon and 25 years for another RUF leader Augustine Gbao.

The other convicts set to serve their time in Rwanda are AFRC leaders Alex Tamba Brima and Santigie Bobor Kanu -- both sentenced to 50 years -- and CDF leaders Alieu Kondewa and Moinina Fofana, who received 20 and 15 years respectively.

The special court's only remaining defendant, former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is accused of controlling the RUF, had his trial moved to The Hague for security reasons.