Death for S Leone coup plotters

President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah won in elections in 2002 after the war was declared over

Ten men have been sentenced to death in Sierra Leone after a court found them guilty of treason for attempting to overthrow the government last year.

The men were judged to have taken part in an attack on an armoury in the capital, Freetown, which led to a three-hour gun battle.

The attack caused panic coming within a year of the brutal 10-year civil war being declared over.

The convicts have 21 days to appeal the conviction.

Families wept

Six of the men sentenced to be hanged were members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which ruled the country for a year following a coup in 1997.

Three others were members of the rebel Revolutionary United Front group, and the last man was a civilian.

Another man was sentenced to 10 years in prison and four others were freed.

The atmosphere outside the courtroom on Monday was tense and families of those condemned wept when the verdicts were handed down after the eight-month trial, correspondents say.

According to the BBC's Lansana Fofana in Freetown, former AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma was also wanted in connection with the attack on the barracks in January 2003, but fled the country when authorities tried to arrest him.

As many as 200,000 people were killed in civil war, while thousands more were mutilated, raped and tortured.