Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is on trial for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during one of Africa's most horrific civil wars.

Survivors of the 1991-2002 conflict hope the U.N.-backed Special Court will be able to deliver some long-awaited justice.

More than 250,000 million people died in intertwined wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone which shocked the world with their brutality and images of drugged-up child soldiers killing and looting.

Prosecutors say Taylor wanted to plunder Sierra Leone's diamonds and destabilise its government. He is accused of controlling and arming rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during a campaign of terror against civilians.

Taylor, once one of Africa's most feared warlords, faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include acts of terrorism, murder, rape, enslavement, conscripting child soldiers, sexual slavery, pillage and outrages upon personal dignity. He has denied all the charges.

Ten other people are indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone which was set up in 2002 to try those most responsible for the conflict. Three key defendants have died, including notorious RUF leader Foday Sankoh.

Taylor's violent career dates back to 1989, when he launched a rebellion against then Liberian President Samuel Doe. Liberia's civil war lasted until 1996, leaving some 200,000 dead. A year later, Taylor became president after winning a landslide election victory.

By the early 1990s, civil war had also broken out in Sierra Leone, where Sankoh's RUF had launched a campaign against President Joseph Momoh, who was eventually ousted in 1992, plunging the country into chaos.

Taylor sought to take advantage of the mayhem by backing the RUF, which had seized towns in Sierra Leone near the Liberian border. According to the indictment, he sought to boost his own influence in West Africa by attempting to gain control of Sierra Leone's vast mineral wealth, particularly its diamond mines. The war was partly funded by what came to be known as "blood diamonds".

A peace deal in 1996 rapidly fell apart and the country returned to war - a conflict characterised by the mutilation of thousands of civilians by rebel forces. A Nigerian-led West African intervention force drove the RUF out of the capital Freetown in 1998, but they returned a year later, devastating the city and killing 5,000 people.

A peace agreement in 1999 policed by U.N. troops backed by the British army finally led to a formal end to the conflict in 2002 and the U.N. agreement to set up a war crimes court. Taylor, who had fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003, was eventually caught in 2006.

Taylor is the first former African head of state to stand trial in front of any court. The case is being held in The Hague for fear that proceedings in Freetown could ignite unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia.

The trial, which began in mid-2007, got off to a shaky start when Taylor failed to show up and demanded more money for his defence. The hearing resumed in 2008 and is expected to last until mid-2009. If convicted, Taylor faces a hefty sentence that he would serve in Britain.

See AlertNet's Liberia briefing for more background.