Rebel fighters hacked off Jabati Mambu’s right hand more than 13 years ago in Sierra Leone.

This week, Mambu says his wounds may finally be healed.

On Thursday, judges at an international war crimes court will pass judgment on warlord-turned-Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is accused of sponsoring rebels responsible for untold atrocities during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war in return for so-called blood diamonds.

The historic verdicts at the Special Court for Sierra Leone will mark the first time an international tribunal has reached judgment in the trial of a former head of state since judges in Nuremberg convicted Karl Doenitz, a naval officer who briefly led Germany after Adolf Hitler’s suicide.

For Mambu, the Taylor verdicts promise closure 10 years since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war, which cost some 50,000 lives.

“The trial is very important to all victims because it will help to heal our wounds,’’ he told The Associated Press in Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital where he lost his hand. He said the tribunal is a landmark in efforts to end impunity for leaders who sponsor rebellion.

While Taylor will be the first ex-president since Nuremberg to receive judgment in an international tribunal, meting out justice to national leaders is on the rise as international law has developed in the last 20 years from ad hoc United Nations tribunals to the permanent International Criminal Court.

Ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was tried for fomenting the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but he died before the case reached a conclusion. Prosecutors at the same court, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, are close to wrapping up their case against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused of masterminding atrocities including genocide during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.