Charles Taylor verdict expected by April

A judgment in the war crimes trial for former Liberian President Charles Taylor is expected by the end of April, a U.N.-backed special court announced. Taylor is facing 11 war crimes charges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone for allegedly funding conflict in Sierra Leone with so-called blood diamonds and for the alleged conscription of child soldiers. Special Court Registrar Binta Mansaray said the Taylor verdict would be a "critical milestone" as the last trial related to civil war in Sierra Leone. She added there were more than 50,000 pages of witness testimony and more than 1,500 exhibits presented as evidence in a case that opened in 2007. The Boston Globe reported in January that it confirmed through a Freedom of Information Act request that Taylor was an asset of U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA. The newspaper say Taylor served as a source of information on intelligence related to former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, allegedly killed by rebel forces during the war there last year. A spokesman for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Soloman Moriba, told the newspaper the close ties to Washington may explain why the U.S. government was reluctant to use its influence to bring Taylor to justice before he resigned in 2003.