Liberia: Timber dealer convicted

The Dutch timber merchant Guus van Kouwenhoven has been sentenced to eight years in prison for breaking a United Nations arms embargo on Liberia. A Dutch court found that Kouwenhoven had sold weapons to the former Liberian president Charles Taylor in return for timber rights. But he was acquitted of war crimes charges based on allegations that private militias formed by his two timber companies had carried out atrocities.