( CNN ) -- The defense for Charles Taylor is expected to submit its counter-recommendation Thursday after prosecutors said the former Liberian president deserves an 80-year sentence for a war crimes conviction . Taylor was found guilty last month of aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone 's civil war . `` Should the trial chamber decide to impose a global sentence , 80 years ' imprisonment would be appropriate , '' said Brenda Hollis , chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone . In the statement last week , the prosecutor said the sentence reflects the gravity of the crimes . `` But for Charles Taylor 's criminal conduct , thousands of people would not have had limbs amputated , would not have been raped , would not have been killed , '' Hollis said . `` The recommended sentence provides fair and adequate response to the outrage these crimes caused in victims , their families and relatives . '' Last month 's landmark ruling by the international tribunal was the first war crimes conviction of a former head of state by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War II . Taylor , 64 , was found guilty of all 11 counts of aiding and abetting rebel forces in a campaign of terror that involved murder , rape , sexual slavery , conscripting children younger than 15 and mining diamonds to pay for guns . Prosecutors accused Taylor of financing and giving orders to rebels in Sierra Leone 's civil war that ultimately left 50,000 dead or missing . His support for the rebels fueled the bloody war , prosecutors said . Prosecutors , however , failed to prove that he had direct command over the rebels who committed the atrocities . There is no death penalty in international criminal law , and he would serve out any sentence in a British prison . Taylor has been a pivotal figure in Liberian politics for decades , and was forced out of office under international pressure in 2003 . He fled to Nigeria , where border guards arrested him three years later as he was attempting to cross into Chad . His trial was at the special court for Sierra Leone in The Hague , Netherlands . U.N. officials and the Sierra Leone government jointly set up the tribunal to try those who played the biggest role in the atrocities . The court was moved from Sierra Leone , where emotions about the civil war still run high . Taylor becomes the first former head of state since Adm. Karl Doenitz , who became president of Germany briefly after Adolf Hitler 's suicide , to be convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity by an international tribunal . Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was tried by an international tribunal , but died before a judgment was issued .
The former Liberian president was convicted of war crimes . Prosecutors say he received an death sentence for the crime . Taylor aided fighters in a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone .