Sierra Leone war-time leader Ahmad Tejan Kabbah dies

• Former President and leader of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah died on 13 March 2014 in Freetown at the age of 82. 
• He had played a great role in gaining peace to the country after 11 year long civil war. 
• Born in 1932, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah began his career in public service in 1959, rising to become the youngest permanent secretary in the country in the late 1960s.

• He was the first former head of state convicted by an international court since the Nuremburg military tribunal of Nazis after World War II.
• Mr Kabbah was first elected president in 1996, ending a decade of military rule. In less than a year, due to a military coup by Revolutionary United Front (RUF), he fled to Guinea and formed government-in-exile. 
• He then spent 21 years working for the UN Development Programme, based in New York, Lesotho and Tanzania.
• He returned in 1998 and was successful in establishing peace in the Sierra Leone with the help of United Nations. 
• He was again elected in 2002 and ruled the country till 2007.
• He won a landslide victory in the 2002 elections and was praised for maintaining peace and establishing democratic institutions, although he was also criticised for failing to tackle poverty. 
• In 2012 the UN-backed Sierra Leone war crimes court in The Hague convicted former Liberian leader Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes in the Sierra Leone civil war.