Prosecution Asks Taylor if he Gave Blood Diamond to Model

Posted in News by Admin on January 15th, 2010

British top model Naomi Campbell may have to appear as a witness in the trial against Charles Taylor after allegations surfaced that had given her a so-called blood diamond in 1997.

Taylor, the former president of Liberia, is standing trial at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. A SCSL spokesperson could not confirm whether Campbell would in fact be heard as a witness, but confirmed the prosecution had been in touch with her.

Taylor is charged with having orchestrated war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 11-year civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone that started in 1991 and claimed an estimated 120,000 lives.

“That diamond that you sent to Naomi Campbell,” prosecutor Brenda Hollis asked Taylor during a cross-examination Thursday, “was one of the diamonds that you had been given by the junta in Sierra Leone. Isn’t that correct?”

Taylor’s response was to call the allegations “total nonsense.” Hollis said Taylor had given the diamond to Campbell after a dinner in South Africa in 1997 also attended by South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela, musician Quincy Jones, and actress Mia Farrow.

The diamond was allegedly one of several gems that rebels from Sierra Leone gave to Taylor so that he could purchase arms for them in South Africa.

Taylor is alleged to have backed and armed the rebel forces in Sierra Leone to gain control of the country’s diamond mines. He is the first former African leader and the second former head of state, after the former Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, to be tried by an international war crimes court. He denies all charges.

The SCSL, set up jointly by Sierra Leone and the UN, is mandated to try those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations law in the country since November 30, 1996.

Taylor’s trial was moved from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown to the Netherlands for security reasons. The trial of the former Liberian president is taking place at the ICC premises.