Ex Chelsea star George Weah wins Liberia presidential run-off but is engulfed in controversy after naming the wife of cannibal warlord Charles Taylor as his deputy

Liberian presidential candidate George Weah's running mate Jewel Howard-Taylor began life in politics as first lady to former warlord leader Charles Taylor, but has since established a formidable political reputation in her own right.

Howard-Taylor was a surprise pick for vice-president on the ticket of the footballer turned politician, as many expected her to run for the top job herself.

Her National Patriotic Party (NPP) was formed in 1997 by members of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) - Charles Taylor's rebel fighters - to allow him to run for president in hopes of ending a civil war that began in 1989.

Jewel Howard-Taylor, right, married Charles Taylor just before he was elected Liberian president in 1997

She married Liberia's most powerful warlord just before he was elected in 1997 by a population weary of conflict, and was granted a divorce in 2006, while Taylor was living in exile in Nigeria with another woman.

Howard-Taylor's political career began in earnest when she was elected in 2005 as a senator in Bong County, the nation's third most populous county, and has since built an image as a resilient hard worker in Liberia's male-dominated politics.  

'The first thing I've done is to believe that I am able to make the changes I talk about,' she told AFP in a recent interview.

'I have made promises I have fulfilled in education, healthcare and infrastructure development, and so I hope over the past 12 years Jewel Howard has become her own person working for peace, working for prosperity and working for development,' she added.

Howard-Taylor was a surprise pick for George Weah's running mate, as many expected her to run for the top job herself

Her NPP party agreed to form a coalition with Weah's Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) in 2017, on the condition Howard-Taylor could run as vice-president.

No matter what she does to distance herself, Howard-Taylor's proximity to Taylor remains a talking point, and in a nation where the ex-president is still revered by many, her presence seems to have been an asset for Weah.

The former AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain football star won just 10.7 percent of the vote in Bong County when he stood for president in 2005, but in the first round of voting in 2017 his share of the vote shot up to 40.6 percent.

'I think it's unfair for people to assume that because she has kept the Taylor first name that she hasn't built her own political empire,' noted Liberian activist and scholar Robtel Neajai Pailey.

But some say she can never separate herself from her past alliances.

'Her name is Jewel Howard-Taylor, so it has a very thin line between the separation as a first lady and a separation as a senator, for the fact that most people (here) still owe Charles Taylor so greatly,' said Uriah Mitchell, head of programmes and production at Radio Gbarnga in Bong County's capital.

Howard-Taylor has built an image as a resilient hard worker in Liberia's male-dominated politics

Taylor is currently serving a 50-year sentence for war crimes in a British prison, although he was convicted of funding rebel groups in Sierra Leone, not the recruitment of child soldiers, killings, rape and pillaging of which he is accused at home.

Questions remain over how much Howard-Taylor knew of her husband's crimes, as she was studying and working abroad during his rebel years before he was elected president.

She is now estranged from Taylor, though she has admitted staying in contact with the father of her two children.

Howard-Taylor has also opposed war crime prosecutions in Liberia, which has never prosecuted rebel leaders from crimes committed during its back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003.

George Weah has entered into a partnership with the ex-wife of former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor as he bids to become the country's next president.

The arrangement has sparked controversy in a country where the wounds caused by the dictator are yet to fully heal.

Educated in America, and with a taste for Italian suits, Taylor was a billionaire with a fondness for the company of supermodels.

He is currently serving a 50-year sentence in a British prison for war crimes after being convicted of funding rebel groups in Sierra Leone during conflicts that left thousands dead or mutilated.

George Weah has entered into a partnership with the ex-wife of former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor (pictured) as he bids to become the country's next president

During his war crimes trial in 2008, the court heard a close former aide testified that that he ordered his militias to eat the flesh of captured enemies and U.N. soldiers.

More than 250,000 people died in intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Prosecutors said Taylor wanted to plunder neighboring Sierra Leone's diamonds and destabilise its government by controlling and arming rebels. 

He drew up plans – codenamed Operation No Living Thing – to slaughter the entire population of neighbouring Sierra Leone, enabling him to make billions from the country's rich natural resources.

Helped by his American-born son 'Chuckie', he orchestrated the death of at tens of thousands, many of whom were tortured and raped. Others were cooked and eaten by his troops.

Dazzled by stories of his neighbouring country's spectacular diamond finds, Taylor had fomented a bloody rebellion in Sierra Leone, sending men and weapons to help the plunder.

As a front, he used a proxy army called the Revolutionary United Front, a rag-tag collection of rebels and child soldiers recruited at gunpoint from rural areas. They were plied with 'brown-brown' – a mixture of heroin and gunpowder – so they could murder and rape without emotion.

Taylor (pictured) is currently serving a 50-year sentence for war crimes

In an orgy of terror, these drug-crazed fighters were ordered to hack off arms and legs with machetes, offering their victims the option of 'short sleeves or long sleeves' – a cut at the wrist, or the shoulder.

Sierra Leone became Africa's new Heart Of Darkness and was reduced to ruin as forces backed by Taylor, some dressed in women's clothes in the bizarre belief this would protect them from bullets, ran amok.

His child soldiers have told how they were forced to rape elderly women at gunpoint, and torture anyone suspected of collaborating with government forces.

The aim was to drive everyone away from the diamond fields, leaving Taylor's forces in undisputed control of the mines. Thousands of women were kept as sex slaves by his marauders – after the tendons in their feet were slashed with machetes so they couldn't flee.

Pregnant women had their stomachs hacked open and their unborn children killed in the womb.

As a member of the Poro Society, an ancient West African cult of demon-worshippers, Taylor believed that eating the organs of his enemies gave him their strength.

Born in a remote Liberian village in 1948, Taylor excelled at school and earned a university place in Boston. After gaining an economics degree in 1977, he returned home to take a government job in Liberia – only to flee back to the US in 1985 after embezzling more than £1million from state coffers.

But he was arrested on his arrival in America for crimes committed in Liberia and jailed pending trial.

His child soldiers have told how they were forced to rape elderly women at gunpoint, and torture anyone suspected of collaborating with government forces (file picture)

Mysteriously, Taylor escaped a year later – reputedly with the help of the CIA – and was next spotted in Libya.

There, he underwent guerilla warfare training and – helped by his friend Muammar Gaddafi – he raised an army and fought his way back into Liberia, all while intervening in Sierra Leone.

When Liberia's leader, Samuel Doe, was killed by a rival warlord in 1997, Taylor, whose forces already controlled vast swathes of territory, seized total control.

He installed his son as head of his secret police and began killing opponents and diverting state money to his private bank accounts.

'Chuckie', meanwhile, buried victims alive. He tortured others with red-hot irons and electric shocks. A favourite method was to drip hot oil into the eyes of prisoners.

Both Liberia and Sierra Leone descended into anarchy, forcing UN troops and Britain's SAS to intervene. Taylor fled to Nigeria where he was later arrested and sent to the Hague in 2006.

Following his conviction, he was transferred to prison in Britain.

Today, Sierra Leone and Liberia are still struggling to recover from Taylor's madness, with thousands maimed and mentally scarred by his atrocities.

What must they make of his argument – issued from his comfortable prison cell, via expensive lawyers, between three free meals a day – that his human rights are being violated?