FILE – In this Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013, file photo, Former Liberian President Charles Taylor waits for the start of his appeal judgement at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in Leidschendam, near The Hague, Netherlands. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has enjoyed playing tennis with fellow inmates in The Hague and is worried about his personal safety once he is transferred to Britain to serve out his sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to new documents released by his lawyers. (AP Photo/Koen van Weel, File)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been flown to Britain to serve his 50-year sentence for sponsoring atrocities in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone announced that the 75-year-old warlord-turned-president was put on a chartered plane to Britain on Tuesday, where he was turned over to prison officials.

Taylor was convicted on April 26, 2012, of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding murderous rebels in Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. His conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal last month.

He is the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II. Taylor always maintained he was innocent.

Source: apnews