Rough Justice

Lawyers for the Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor have argued that he should not be imprisoned in the United Kingdom, despite Britain's long and glorious experience of incarcerating black people. In defiance of the values upheld by a long and glorious succession of British Home Secretaries, the Hague court is not empowered to impose either life imprisonment or moral homicide; so the prosecution has demanded a sentence of eighty years. The defence contends that this is a little excessive given that Taylor is already in his mid-sixties, and claims that locking him up in Britain would interfere with the family values manifest in his fifteen biological children. There are also difficulties over the British conception of maximum security, which resulted in the stabbing of the former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic two years ago. Taylor's lawyers request the court to consider "the fact that Mr Taylor will effectively serve his sentence in isolation from all culturally familiar circumstances and very far removed from family and friends." We must hope that the court will think the matter through carefully, and avoid setting any unhealthy precedent which might one day enable Tony Blair to slither out of serving his own time in Iraq.