Taylor trial hears how child was dismembered

By Alexandra Hudson

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Child soldiers serving with rebels in Sierra Leone dismembered a screaming boy before tossing him in a toilet pit, a pastor who survived a massacre told the trial of Charles Taylor on Tuesday.

The former Liberian president, once one of Africa's most feared warlords, is on trial for orchestrating rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers during the 1991-2002 civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.

In harrowing testimony, Alex Tamba Teh, 47, told the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone how he saw a rebel commander from Liberia he called "Rocky" shoot 101 people. Rocky spared his life only because he was a pastor.

"After he killed the civilians ... he gave the instruction that they should be decapitated. Rocky gave the order to the small boy units," Tamba Teh told the court, referring to the gangs of child soldiers used by rebels during the war.

On the second day of prosecution evidence, Tamba Teh -- from the eastern diamond district of Kono -- recounted how rebels voted on whether to spare his life and how they carved the initials RUF into the bodies of abductees. He also described rapes of abducted women by rebels.

Child soldiers -- some of whom were so small they could not even lift their guns -- rounded on one boy and chopped off his hand, then his arm, then both his feet, before tossing him into a toilet pit, Tamba Teh said, speaking in an African Creole.

Showing the court his mouth, Tamba Teh explained how a rebel knocked out his teeth with a pistol. They also forced him to help unload ammunition from a Liberian helicopter.

TAYLOR DENIES GUILT