BBC News with Julie Candler

A United Nations-backed court has found the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, guilty of aiding and

abetting

crimes against humanity, murder, rape and terrorism. The court in The Hague said Mr Taylor was criminally responsible for supporting the Revolutionary United Front rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the civil war in the 1990s. He'll be sentenced next month. Mr Taylor's lawyer described the trial as politically motivated. From The Hague, Peter Biles.

The prosecution had wanted to show that Mr Taylor was the key figure in arming and supporting the rebels in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s. The trial chamber said Charles Taylor's influence

fell short of

command responsibility, but on all 11 charges he was found criminally responsible for aiding and abetting the rebel forces and planning crimes. The judges also said there had been a continuous supply of diamonds from Sierra Leone provided to Mr Taylor in exchange for weapons.

Reacting to the

verdicts

, the chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis called it a historic day for the people of Sierra Leone. Alpha Sesay is a human rights lawyer there.

"In the eyes of very many people in Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor has always been guilty. There's excitement. I mean there's confusion, of course, about the findings of the

trial chamber

: what does it mean for him to be found guilty of aiding and abetting and not command responsibility was? In the eyes of some other people, a guilty verdict is a guilty verdict, and so a lot of people are really excited in Sierra Leone."