(Adds details, rights group paragraphs 3-4)

By Christo Johnson

FREETOWN, June 20 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's special war crimes court handed down its first verdicts on Wednesday, finding three leaders of a militia guilty of war crimes that included killing, raping and mutilating civilians.

The verdicts against Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu stem from charges related to Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, which also target former Liberian President Charles Taylor, facing a separate trial in The Hague.

Among other charges, the three were found guilty of forcing children aged under 15 to fight, the first time an international tribunal has ruled on the recruitment of child soldiers.

"These convictions are a ground-breaking step toward ending impunity for commanders who exploit hundreds of thousands of children as soldiers in conflicts worldwide," U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

The three men were commanders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), former government soldiers who split from the army and sided with the RUF rebels during the conflict that devastated the former British colony.

The U.N.-backed tribunal found them guilty on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity which covered terrorising the civilian population, unlawful killings, rape, abductions and forced labour, and looting.

The men, who pleaded innocent of all charges, were found not guilty on two counts of sexual violence and one count of physical violence. They are due to be sentenced on July 16.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up jointly by the country's government and the United Nations in 2002 to try those deemed most responsible for human rights violations during the later stages of the civil war.

It initially issued 13 indictments against leaders from all three main warring factions but three suspects have since died and the whereabouts of another is unknown.

TAYLOR'S ACCOMPLICES

The AFRC staged a coup on May 25, 1997, ousting President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah just six months after he signed a peace deal. They then joined with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in a bid to gain control of Sierra Leone's diamond mines.

"Captured women and girls were raped ... AFRC/RUF also physically mutilated men, women and children, including carving 'AFRC' and 'RUF' on their bodies," the prosecution said in its indictment.

It also said the three men acted in concert with Taylor.

Many ordinary Sierra Leoneans take only a passing interest in the tribunal, partly because rebel leaders Foday Sankoh and Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie are dead and partly because they are too busy living day-to-day in one of the world's poorest countries.

The prosecution listed towns and villages around Sierra Leone where fighters hacked civilians to death, kidnapped others and took them to bases with names like "Superman Camp" or forced them to work as diamond miners.

Forces loyal to President Kabbah forced the AFRC/RUF junta from power in February 1998 and his government returned the next month, but hostilities continued, including subsequent attacks by junta fighters on the capital Freetown.

British military intervention to back up U.N. peacekeepers checked the rebel advance in 2000, helping to end a decade of war in which an estimated 50,000 people were killed.

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