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07/22/2004:

"Sierra Leoneans testify on rebel abuse"

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- Witness TF-1196 told her story: Rebels used machetes to hack all movement and life out of her husband. Then a rebel young enough to be her child raped her.

She raised the rounded tips of her arms to show why she had not signed her statement, delivered before a U.N.-backed war crimes court for the diamond-rich west African nation of Sierra Leone.

"After they had killed my husband, a rebel ... chopped off my right and left hands with a cutlass, into four bits," TF-1196 - a downcast, middle-aged woman - told the court.

Full Article : seattlepi.nwsource.com