The High Court in Sierra Leone has sentenced the rebel leader, Fodeh Sankoh, to death, for his role in the coup d'etat which ousted President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in May last year.

The judge sentenced Corporal Sankoh, who led a rebellion by the Revolutionary United Front from the early nineties, to hang after a jury found him guilty on seven counts of treason.

The grey-bearded former corporal remained defiant in court, defending himself when Freetown lawyers were reluctant to take on his case, and bursting into war songs when the death sentence was announced.

Hero to child soldiers

He is a hero to the child soldiers who fought his rebellion against successive Sierra Leone Governments, and, under his leadership, conducted a reign of terror in the countryside, killing and mutilating men women and children in the areas where they were strong.

But the death sentence is not for rebellion - a line was supposed to have been drawn under that in a peace agreement signed two years ago.

The treason verdict was for his role in the coup last year and the period of military rule which followed.

Sankoh was actually in Nigeria, under a discreet form of house arrest at the time, but he still had access to a phone, and immediately after the coup he gave an interview, broadcast on the BBC, in which he called on his followers to come out of bush and join the coup makers.

Within hours, heavily-armed young men with amulets and matted hair started appearing on the streets of Freetown, lending the military regime much of its violent and chaotic character, and greatly strengthening the hands of the plotters.

Sankoh is appealing against the verdict, but with even minor collaborators of the junta receiving death sentences, his chances of a reprieve look slim.