Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president on Monday pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes in his first appearance in front of a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone but refused to recognise the court’s jurisdiction.

Mr Taylor, who is seen as one of the world’s foremost war crimes suspects, stands accused of crimes including killings, rapes, mutilations, and recruiting child soldiers by backing Sierra Leonean rebels who fought to control diamond fields in a decade of war that ended in 2002.