Armed Forces Revolutionary Council

While the AFRC briefly controlled the country in 1998, it was driven from the capital by an international military intervention of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).

The AFRC was formed by Major Johnny Paul Koroma of the Sierra Leonean military in 1997, who used it to carry out a coup d'etat against the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

Several rationales have been suggested for the coup, including: anger at the government for not implementing the November 1996 peace agreement with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), perceived ethnic discrimination in the appointment of the highest ranks of government, perceived financial neglect of the armed forces, and favoritism for the ethnic Mende Kamajors led by Samuel Hinga Norman.

Following the coup, in May 1997 the AFRC demanded that the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force then in the country release the arrested RUF leader Foday Sankoh.

In June 2007, the Special Court found three of the eleven people indicted – Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu – guilty of war crimes, including acts of terrorism, collective punishments, extermination, murder, rape, outrages upon personal dignity, conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces, enslavement and pillage.