Sonny Cole stands in a sunny park in Western Sydney as he recalls the words of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, now convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes.
"He made the pronouncement that Sierra Leone would taste the bitterness of war."
The photojournalist and Sierra Leonean community leader speaks with some satisfaction now that news of Charles Taylor's conviction on 11 counts at the Hague has reached his small community.
Especially today, Sierra Leon's national day of independence.
The former president was found to have provided sustained support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) though trading arms for so-called 'blood diamonds', in a brutal conflict that lasted throughout the nineties.
The rebel's hallmark was carving “RUF” into the backs of children who were forced into slavery. Thousands had their hands and arms amputated.
“I met Taylor some time ago when the war was on Liberia. Taylor looked like a good guy, a gentleman, but what he was doing was things a human being cannot do,” Mr Cole said.
But the UN-backed tribunal's ruling, which has taken four years to reach a conviction, has been too long a time for some Australian/Sierra Leoneans, such as George Kpakima.
“Four years is a long time when you think about the more than 50,000 people that were killed in the war, pregnant women and the child soldiers he groomed. There was not a house left standing in the place where I am from,” Mr Kpakima said.
However, the conviction of the first African head of state and first international head of state since the Nuremberg trial to happen on Sierra Leon's national day is a step forward for a healing country.
“There will be celebrations tonight in Freetown, just as there will be here in Australia,” Mr Cole said.Charles Taylor will appear in court again on May 16 ahead on his sentencing on May 20.
It's expected he will serve his time in a UK jail.
