Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is on trial for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during one of Africa's most horrific civil wars.

Survivors of the 1991-2002 conflict hope the U.N.-backed Special Court will be able to deliver some long-awaited justice.

• Trial held in The Hague due to fears of causing unrest in West Africa
• 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity
• Not guilty plea submitted

Taylor was a driving force behind intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone that killed more than a quarter of a million people and shocked the world with stories and images of child soldiers high on drugs, killing, raping and looting.

But the 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity that he faces at the U.N.-backed Special Court in The Hague - including recruiting child soldiers - relate solely to the Sierra Leone conflict and date back to 1996.

Aside from Taylor, 10 people are indicted by the court, established in January 2002, days before the war in Sierra Leone was declared over. None of them has as yet been sentenced. Three other key defendants have died, including in 2003 Foday Sankoh, the notorious leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), whose murderous rebel group was allegedly supported by Taylor.

Taylor's violent career dates back to 1989, when he launched a rebellion against then Liberian President Samuel Doe. Liberia's civil war lasted until 1996, leaving some 200,000 dead. A year later, Taylor became president after winning a landslide election victory.

By the early 1990s, civil war had also broken out in neighbouring Sierra Leone, where Sankoh's RUF had launched a campaign against President Joseph Momoh, who was eventually ousted in 1992, plunging the country into chaos.

Taylor sought to take advantage of the mayhem by backing the RUF, which had seized towns in Sierra Leone near the Liberian border. According to his indictment in The Hague, he sought to boost his own influence in West Africa by attempting to gain control of Sierra Leone's vast mineral wealth, particularly its diamond mines. The war was partly funded by what came to be known as "blood diamonds".

A peace deal in 1996 rapidly fell apart and the country returned to bitter civil war, characterised by the mutilation of thousands of innocent civilians by rebel forces, many of whom were drugged-up child soldiers. A Nigerian-led West African intervention force drove the RUF out of the capital, Freetown, in 1998, but they returned a year later, devastating the city and killing 5,000 people.

A peace agreement in 1999 policed by U.N. troops backed by the British Army finally led to a formal end to the conflict in 2002 and the U.N. agreement to set up a war crimes court. Taylor, who had fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003, was eventually caught in 2006. The court condensed the number of counts against him to 11 from 17 to ensure a more focused trial and avoid further delays.

The trial, which began in June 2007, was adjourned after being boycotted by Taylor. The former Liberian president claimed he was poorly represented by the court-appointed lawyer and did not have sufficient funds to mount a proper defense.

The trial resumed in January 2008 and is expected to last until mid-2009. It is being held in The Hague for fear that proceedings in Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia.

If convicted, Taylor faces a hefty sentence that he would serve in Britain.