Liberia’s jailed ex-President Charles Taylor is due to begin his appeal at a UN-backed special court in The Hague.
Last May, the court sentenced him to 50 years in prison for aiding and abetting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war.
Defence lawyers have called the verdict a “miscarriage of justice” and ask for the conviction to be squashed.
Meanwhile Taylor, 64, has reportedly written to MPs demanding a presidential pension of $25,000 (£15,600).
Describing the withholding of his state presidential pension as a “mammoth injustice”, Taylor is quoted in the letter as saying that he is entitled to consular access and diplomatic services at The Hague, but he has been “denied that right”.
Taylor became the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after World War II.
Throughout his trial, the former Liberian leader, who was arrested in 2006, maintained his innocence.
‘Heinous crimes’
The court was set up in 2002 to try those who bore the greatest responsibility for the war in Sierra Leone in which some 50,000 people were killed.
