LEIDSCHENDAM (AFP) - Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor was convicted Thursday of war crimes for arming Sierra Leone's rebels in return for blood diamonds during the 1991-2001 civil war.

"The trial chamber finds you guilty of aiding and abetting of all these crimes," presiding judge Richard Lussick told the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the first verdict against former head of state by a world court since the Nuremberg trials.