MONROVIA - In Liberia, where Charles Taylors name elicits both hatred and fierce loyalty, some say they feel humiliated by the 50-year jail sentence for their former head of state.
Others voiced relief that the one-time warlord was punished for fuelling a bloody civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, wondering only why he was not put behind bars for bloodshed he brought to his own country.
As proceedings got underway in The Hague, about 100 people gathered around a large television in a Monrovia teahouse to watch on CNN the sentencing of the man who led a rebel army before being elected president of Liberia.
A heated debate raged before the screening began - some insisted Taylor would get no more than 10 years in jail, others demanded the full 80 years requested by the prosecution for aiding rebel war crimes in Sierra Leone.
But one could hear a pin drop when judge Richard Lussick began reading out the sentencing judgement, and his pronouncement was greeted by more stunned silence before comments began flying over the outcome.