Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison by judges at a United Nations-backed court in the Hague.

The 64-year-old was found guilty by the court last month for arming Sierra Leone rebels in return for "blood diamonds".

"The trial chamber unanimously sentences you to a single term of imprisonment for 50 years on all counts," Special Court for Sierra Leone judge Richard Lussick said on Wednesday at the court based just outside The Hague.

"The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history."

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Judge Lussick says the sentence is intended to underscore the gravity attached to "the betrayal of public trust" from Taylor's time as president.

Taylor, dressed in a smart dark suit, white shirt and golden tie, listened with his eyes closed and a drawn face as the judge handed down the sentence.

He was convicted on April 26 on all 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during the country's 1991-2001 civil war.

In return, the court said, Taylor was paid in diamonds mined by slave labour in areas under control of rebels who murdered, raped and kept sex slaves while hacking off limbs and forcing children under 15 to fight.

Timeline Taylor, born in January 1948, became president of Liberia in 1997.

Taylor, born in January 1948, became president of Liberia in 1997. In 2003 he was indicted by a UN-backed war crimes court for his role in fuelling the 1991-2002 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

In 2003 he was indicted by a UN-backed war crimes court for his role in fuelling the 1991-2002 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The war was marked by drug-fuelled atrocities, including murders, rapes and systematic amputations.

The war was marked by drug-fuelled atrocities, including murders, rapes and systematic amputations. Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Taylor later that year and he was taken into custody in March 2006.

Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Taylor later that year and he was taken into custody in March 2006. In April, 2012 he became the first head of a state to be convicted by an international tribunal since the Nazi trials. Read more about Charles Taylor.

Although the sentence was shorter than prosecutors had hoped, Taylor's lawyers say they will appeal against it.

Victims of Sierra Leone's civil war welcomed the prison sentence from Freetown, in Sierra Leone, where hundreds had gathered in front of giant television screens to hear Taylor's fate.

Al Hadji Jusu Jarka - former chairman of the association of amputees, who had both arms cut off by the rebels whom Taylor was convicted of aiding and abetting - voiced relief.

"The curtain has now been drawn on Charles Taylor," the war survivor said.

"I hope he will be haunted by his deeds as he languishes in jail."

Taylor is the first African leader to stand trial for war crimes.

He was indicted by a UN-mandated court in 2001.

Two years later he left the presidency of Liberia and headed for exile in Nigeria, where he was arrested in 2006.

Taylor is the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazis following World War II.

AFP/Reuters