FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - A court in Sierra Leone convicted three members of the country's former ruling junta Wednesday of war crimes committed during the country's brutal civil war.
The court found the three accused guilty on 11 of 14 charges, including acts of terrorism, using child soldiers and murder.
They were acquitted of charges of sexual slavery and "other inhumane acts.''
The men -- Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu -- were indicted in 2003 as alleged leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
The council, a collection of former military men, toppled Sierra Leone's government in a 1997 coup and then teamed up with rebels to control the country.
"It's the first time that an international court has issued a verdict on child recruitment,'' said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Dufka, an expert on the conflict, said junta members committed their worst atrocities after they were pushed into the bush by an international peacekeeping force in 1998.
They started "punishing the civilian population as a whole,'' Dufka said.
It is estimated that about half a million people were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during the conflict, in which illicit diamond sales fuelled years of devastation.
The tribunal that issued Wednesday's verdict was set up following the end of fighting in 2002 to prosecute the worst offenders in a conflict that ravaged the small West African country and spilled over into neighbouring Liberia.
In all, the court has indicted 12 people, including former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is charged with backing the Sierra Leonean rebels.
Taylor's trial opened earlier this month in The Hague, Netherlands. It was being held outside of Freetown, in a room rented from the International Criminal Court, because of fears the case could trigger fresh violence.
Taylor is also linked to brutality in his own country, but Liberians have opted for a truth and reconciliation commission rather than a court.
Some have criticized the Special Court for not progressing through trials quickly enough.
Three of those charged have died since the indictments -- two of natural causes and one in a killing that many believe was a move to silence him.
