Still, the former president conceded that skulls of Liberian soldiers displayed at strategic roadblocks in 1990.
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is seen at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone...
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is seen at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, July 13, 2009. Charles Taylor has begun his defense against charges he led rebels in Sierra Leone who murdered, raped and mutilated villagers. Taylor's lawyer has urged judges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone not to let the horrors inflicted by rebels during the country's civil war cloud their judgment about Taylor's involvement in the crimes. Taylor is charged with 11 crimes including murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, using child soldiers and spreading terror. (AP Photo/Robin van Lonkhuijsen, Pool)
(AP)
"They were enemy skulls and we didn't think that symbol was anything wrong," he said. "I did not consider it bad judgment. I did not order them removed."
Taylor, who earned an economics degree at a U.S. college, said he had seen images of skulls used in many "fraternal organizations" and Western universities.
He also conceded atrocities were committed in Liberia by "bad apples" and renegade soldiers, but said he had taught his small band of rebels — from their initial training in Libya — to abide by the laws of war.
"We found out that they were taking place and we acted to bring those responsible to justice," he said. Rebel soldiers who committed excesses were court-marshaled and sometimes executed, but civilian judicial institutions were left in place in areas under rebel control, he said.
He deflected personal responsibility, saying some of his troops "got a little mischievous" including committing rape and looting, but they were always punished if commanders learned of wrongdoing.
Taylor denied that his Liberian forces used child soldiers, claiming instead that children sometimes accompanied their older brothers, cooking and washing clothes and sometimes carrying their weapons.
"They were not trained for combat and did not engage in combat," he said.
Taylor said he even sought to punish one of his most senior commanders, Prince Johnson, whom he described as a professional soldier and a firm disciplinarian who sometimes "went a little overboard." He said he ordered Johnson's arrest after the officer "got annoyed and executed" two soldiers without a court-martial.
Johnson evaded arrest, however, and made his way to the capital, Monrovia, ahead of the rest of Taylor's troops.
"Prince Johnson captures Doe alive and subsequently kills him," Taylor declared.
