Prosecutor Sees Early 2010 Taylor Warcrime Verdict

Defense testimony was likely to take four to six months, Rapp said.

A verdict in the case of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone, is expected early next year, the prosecutor at the U.N.-backed court trying him said on Monday.

Taylor, on trial before a special court in The Hague, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts including murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery during the 1996-2002 civil war in the impoverished West African state.

Prosecutor Stephen Rapp told a U.N. news conference that the last of 91 prosecution witnesses gave testimony on Friday in the trial, which began in June 2007.

"We believe that we have accomplished what we set out to do," he said.

Rapp said he expected the defense case to start just after Easter -- mid-April this year. If Taylor, the first former African head of state to stand trial before any court, chooses to testify, as his defense team expects him to do, he will be the first defense witness heard.

Defense testimony was likely to take four to six months, Rapp said.

"We believe that all of the evidence and all of the argument will be concluded in this case this year, and it'll be in the hands of the judges for a decision then on guilt or innocence in the early part of 2010," he said.

More than 250,000 people died in intertwined wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia marked by brutal attacks on civilians, drug-crazed child soldiers and amputations of limbs.

SHAKY START

The Sierra Leone court was set up to try those with the greatest responsibility for war crimes there. Unlike other defendants, Taylor, 61, is being tried in The Hague and not in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown to avoid local unrest.

The last prosecution witness was a man who had both his hands amputated by rebels allegedly controlled or aided by Taylor. When his 4-year-old son protested at the amputation of his father's left hand, the rebels threatened the boy with the same fate and the witness then offered his right hand to save him, Rapp said.

Defense counsel Courtenay Griffiths says his client tried to bring peace to Sierra Leone, denying in an interview with Reuters last week that Taylor supplied weapons to the Revolutionary United Front rebels, as alleged.

Taylor's trial got off to a shaky start when he failed to show up and demanded more money to fund his defense, prompting a six-month delay, but has since proceeded more smoothly.

The prosecutor said if Taylor was convicted and appealed, the appeal should be concluded by the end of next year. Britain has offered to imprison Taylor if he receives a jail term from the court, which is barred from passing a death sentence.

Last month, a Miami court sentenced Taylor's son Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., a 31-year-old U.S. citizen, to 97 years in prison for mutilations and executions in Liberia. It was the first U.S. prosecution for torture committed abroad.

Rapp said the judges in The Hague would not be influenced by that verdict.