No one was fooled, least of all the judge at an international criminal court near The Hague who gave the former warlord 50 years in prison for his role in instigating murder, mutilation, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers in Sierra Leone's horrifying civil war during the 1990s.
—Jon Lee Anderson, "After the Warlords," March 27, 2006 Photograph by Tim Hetherington.
When StrongmanSouth died, the colonel switched his allegiance to the Courts, aiding in their final triumph over the warlords, in 2006.
The court, based in The Hague, has also been attacked over its limited number of successful prosecutions – two convictions, both of Congolese warlords, in 13 years – and over the cost of its operations, estimated at $1bn.
Tajik security forces have killed an Islamist warlord and 10 of his fighters who had been accused of an attack on a column of government troops, Tajik news agencies reported Friday.
When the Labour backbencher and future founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, constantly challenged Churchill in his prime as Britain's warlord between 1940-45 he made himself an unpopular nuisance.
Yes, "Kony 2012" may be crude, simplistic and shallow, but can it really be counterproductive if it prompts young people to ask why a well-known warlord with 30 years of atrocities to his name has not been caught and prosecuted?
In The Warlord Chronicles (1995 97), Bernard Cornwell makes Portland the Isle of the Dead, a place of internal exile, where the causeway was guarded to keep the 'dead' (people suffering insanity) from crossing the Fleet and returning to the mainland.
Channel 4's Dispatches: Warlords Next Door attracted 700,000 viewers and a 3% share in the 8pm hour.
'Gangster Warlords' by Ioan Grillo (£12.99, Bloomsbury) is published tomorrow.
"One guy took off 174 warlords' heads," he says, eyes widening.
