Mandela party photo that put Naomi Campbell in 'blood diamond' storm
War crimes trial of former Liberian president may rest on events surrounding 1997 photograph taken at party in South Africa
Ed Pilkington in New York guardian.co.uk,
Friday 23 July 2010 18.06 BST
 Nelson Mandela is pictured with guests at a party in South Africa in 1997. The interaction of Charles Taylor, Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow at the event is likely to come under the spotlight at The Hague when Farrow and Campbell appear as witnesses at Taylor's war crimes trial. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features [Guardian] |
The picture speaks volumes. At the centre of a group of 10 people stands Nelson Mandela and beside him his partner and later wife, Graça Machel. On Mandela's other flank is a short man dressed in a military-style jacket with his hand held out as though he, and not the great South African leader, was hosting the gathering.
He is Charles Taylor, and the photograph was taken a month after he was elected president of Liberia. Now Taylor is in prison at The Hague, the first African president to face trial for war crimes.
The events that surround the photograph could prove to be a significant part of the case against Taylor, who is charged with 11 counts including murder, rape and turning children into soldiers.
 Naomi Campbell, Charles Taylor, Nelson Mandela, at Nelson Mandela Charity Dinner, 1997 |
The picture was taken in 1997 at Mandela's home in Cape Town and the assembled guests, who included Jemima and Imran Khan, the music producer Quincy Jones and Chinese actor Tony Leung, had been invited to mark the opening of South Africa's luxury passenger rail service, the Blue Train.
To Taylor's right is Naomi Campbell, the British model, dressed in an elegant white dress and a cross pendant around her neck. Five people to Taylor's left is Mia Farrow, the actress who starred in Rosemary's Baby and several of her former husband Woody Allen's films.
The interaction of Taylor, Campbell and Farrow is likely to come under the spotlight at The Hague next month when both Farrow and Campbell are due to appear as witnesses.
Their testimony goes to the heart of the case against Taylor – that he obtained illegally procured "blood diamonds" from the Revolutionary United Front rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone, smuggled in mayonnaise jars.
The prosecution alleges he used some of the enormous profits from the sale of the diamonds to traffic weapons to the RUF, thus fomenting and prolonging Sierra Leone's brutal civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Taylor has always denied the charges. "I'm supposed to be such a scumbag that people bring me diamonds in nothing more than a mayonnaise jar? How much more can you demonise me?" he told the court.
But Farrow has claimed that on that night in 1997 Taylor, struck by Campbell's beauty, arranged for the model to be given a rough diamond.
Farrow told ABC News that Campbell told her that during the night Taylor's men "knocked on her door and that they had given her a huge diamond and it was like, Oh my gosh!"
Farrow, who was in South Africa along with some of her children, insists that her memory of the conversation with Campbell is accurate. "You don't forget when a girlfriend tells you she was given a huge rough diamond in the middle of the night," she said.
Report: American Schools Trail Behind World In Aptitude Of Child Soldiers (after crappy Old Spice Ad) |
She said Campbell had told her that she was going to donate the diamond to Mandela's children's charities. She added she thought no more about it until the Taylor prosecution unfolded.
The prosecution at The Hague says the incident corroborates its case that Taylor was involved in trafficking blood diamonds. But Campbell has denied receiving a diamond and has refused to speak on the subject, attempting to avoid appearing before the court.
When ABC News tried to ask her about it she ended the interview and lashed out at a camera. "I didn't receive a diamond and I'm not going to speak about that thank you very much, and I'm not here for that," she snapped.
In May, Campbell told Oprah Winfrey that she had no desire to be involved in the case against Taylor. "He has done some terrible things and I don't want to put my family in danger," she said.
» » » » [Guardian.UK]
» » [Onion: Report: American Schools Trail Behind Africa In Aptitude Of Child Soldiers]
Charles Taylor Becomes Interior Designer; says Human Skulls Are In
July 24 2009, ScrapeTV
Emil Uliya, International Correspondent
The Hague, Netherlands – For as long as governments have existed there has been rebellion and revolution. The people who have led those rebellions have often been regarded as both saints and villains. People such as Ghandi and Spartacus often occupy the same world as the Bolsheviks and Idi Amin, demons to some and angels to others. Throughout Africa rebellion has been an almost standard form of government for decades with governments regularly falling and war second nature for most of the people throughout the continent.
That constant state of rebellion though has made it increasingly difficult for warlords and tyrants to maintain power for extended periods of time. Although some throughout Africa have been able to retain power for decades others have had a more difficult time staying in power, regaining control, or finding new work after their time is up.
Such was the case for Charles Taylor who is currently facing criminal prosecution for war crimes. His rule over Liberia – from 1997 to 2003 – was regarded as one of the most brutal and corrupt in African history. Since losing power though Taylor has found himself largely without direction, that was until he found his panache for interior design.
“Skulls were used as symbols of death. These were not our people. Enemy soldiers had been killed and their skulls were used. We did not think that symbol was anything wrong. I did not order them removed,” said Taylor to Hague judges.
“Skulls are a very underrated element of design. They were always something that intrigued me though I could not put into words what it was that intrigued me about them. We stacked them to frighten our enemies but I could feel even then there was another reason. These last six years have given me a great deal of time to contemplate my life and I have realized that design is my true passion. I firmly believe that human skulls are a beautiful expression that gives balance to any design space.”
Taylor did also state that the use of human entrails and other disembowelment procedures employed under his rule were not sanctioned, were punished, and are not a part of his overall design philosophy.
Because of an expected guilty verdict in the trials and the relatively high profile of Taylor it is believed unlikely that he will enter the world of design. His age, 61, is also cited as a major obstacle to success in the youth oriented field.
“Life can be a funny thing sometimes. You think you know exactly what you want and you pursue it with vigour but something comes up, some kind of obstacle presents itself and you realize that things aren’t exactly as you had thought they were or would be. That forces you to reassess the way you’ve been doing things and can open up all kinds of new options you never thought existed,” said Scrape TV Psychology analyst Dr. Sarah Welp.“I’m sure that design was always something below the surface for Taylor whether it is expressed in hanging paintings or stacking skulls. Likely that has always been a part of the way he has done things and it’s only now with so much solitude and time to contemplate that he has fully realized what has always been lying beneath the surface.”
Political rebellion and revolution have long been a part of Taylor’s life starting in early 1979. He also earned a degree in economics Bentley College though like many graduates did not pursue that field.
 Monrovia, Freeport, Liberia Skulls |
“People often come out of college fresh and eager and confused. More often than not graduation can bring questions and concerns and restlessness that many graduates never even considered they would have. Some people travel to shake themselves of that feeling and others just plunge headlong into work. Frequently though what a person goes to University for doesn’t end up being their career, much like it was for Taylor,” continued Welp.“I’m sure it is a little upsetting coming into one’s own at such an advanced age and with the spectre of lifelong imprisonment hanging over one’s head. I’m sure there are more than a few moments when he wishes he could turn back the clock and forgo revolution and mass murder and just design patios and living rooms but unfortunately life just doesn’t work that way. It’s a shame for us as well, that we lost such potential in the design world. Gaining a blood thirsty tyrant just doesn’t make up for it unfortunately.”
Taylor also stated that he believed other human bones would quickly come into fashion in the coming years. No designers we spoke to have begun integrating human body parts into their designs as yet.
» » » » [ScrapeTV]
» » [SKY: Taylor's Rebels Used Skulls As Terror Tactic ]
Naomi Campbell: I handed 'blood diamonds' to Mandela charity
Naomi Campbell, the model, told a war crimes tribunal that she gave alleged "blood diamonds" to the head of Nelson Mandela's children's charity.
Bruno Waterfield, in The Hague, Aislinn Laing and Caroline Gammell
Published: 9:00PM BST 05 Aug 2010
Campbell: Hague Testimony Video
Giving evidence at The Hague, Campbell admitted that she was given a few "dirty-looking pebbles", which are alleged to be blood diamonds from the Liberian warlord following a charity gala hosted by Mr Mandela in 1997.
Campbell, who is so close to Mr Mandela she refers to him as her "honorary grandfather", then claimed that she had given the uncut gems to Mr Mandela's children's charity "to do something good".
The admission draws Mr Mandela, one of the world's most revered statesmen, into the centre of allegations surrounding the funding of the 1991 – 2002 Sierra Leone war, which was characterised by the use of boy soldiers and the mutilation of 20,000 people who lost arms, legs, lips and ears under machete attack.
Mr Taylor, 62, is being tried on 11 counts of war crimes in Liberia's neighbouring Sierra Leone, including charges of murder, rape and sexual slavery. He is accused of trading in "blood diamonds" to fund the brutal and bloody war in which more than 120,000 died.
Central to the prosecution case is the allegation that Mr Taylor had given Campbell some of these "blood diamonds" as a gift after they met at the banquet hosted by Mr Mandela on September 25, 1997.
Yesterday Campbell told a tribunal that after the function in Pretoria two men had knocked on her bedroom door late at night.
"They said 'a gift for you' and then gave me a pouch. I took it, said thank you and closed the door. There was no explanation, no note."
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Explaining that she was unconcerned because she frequently receives gifts from admirers, Miss Campbell said she put the gift "close to my bed and went back to sleep".
"I opened the pouch the next morning when I woke up. I saw a few stones. They were very, small, dirty looking stones," she said.
Asked what she thought the stones were by a judge, Miss Campbell replied, "they were kind of dirty looking pebbles".
"When I'm used to seeing diamonds, I am used to seeing diamonds shiny and in a box."
The model insisted that the idea that the mysterious present had come from Mr Taylor was only suggested at breakfast the following day by Mia Farrow, the actress, and Carole White, her former agent, who had both attended the dinner.
"One of them said 'that is obviously Charles Taylor' and I said 'I guess that is right', she said.
Campbell said that she had given the uncut diamonds to Jeremy Ractliffe, the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, the following day intending that he use them to help fund the charity's projects.
The 40-year-old, who now lives in New York, said that after that she had forgotten about the incident until she was contacted last year by the tribunal. Initially she refused to attend and gave evidence against her will, after being threatened with a seven year prison sentence if she did not.
She said that last year she had phoned Mr Ractliffe, a friend of the model she said she trusted and worked closely with, and was surprised to hear that he still had the stones.
A spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, set up by the former South African president in 1995, said yesterday that Campbell's evidence was "of great concern".
Opua Ngwenya said: "We don't have any record of the diamonds. Mr Ractliffe is among our trustees so he would have indicated if such a thing existed. We have it on record, we have made a statement to say there's no such record (of diamonds)."
 Naomi Campbell and Vladislav Doronin, her Russian Billionaire boyfriend |
Mr Ractliffe refused to comment on Campbell's claims, telling The Daily Telegraph "The matter is sub judice so I am not saying anything."
Asked about the fund's statement that it never received the diamonds or money from their sale, he replied: "The fund is correct."
Asked whether he himself had received diamonds from Miss Campbell or if he still had them, he hung up.
Questions were also asked last night about why Mr Taylor was invited to the star studded event which included Imran and Jemima Khan, as well as Farrow, who has also been called to give evidence.
Farrow has already claimed, in written evidence submitted to the tribunal, that Mr Mandela's partner Graca Michel told the actress not to pose for photograph with Mr Taylor, inferring that he was not an appropriate person to be pictured with.
Andile Mngxitama, a South African newspaper columnist, said Mr Mandela should not have shared a table with Taylor.
"I do think he should have been more principled about who he would meet," he said. "Mandela would meet any head of state in Africa. When you shake hands with these people you're likely to end up with a bit of blood on your hands."
A source close to Mr Mandela said the former freedom fighter had never shied away from meeting controversial characters in the hope he might positively influence them. "The reality is that Mandela met heads of state of all political backgrounds so it wasn't unusual (to entertain Mr Taylor)."
The tribunal in The Hague started two years ago. Both Farrow and Miss White are due to appear before the court next week.
» » » » [Telegraph]
The Torture of Samuel Doe [by Charles Taylor's NPFL, offshoot INPFL]
July 3, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Iconic Photos
 The gruesome incident was recorded by the INPFL on video tape. Journalists Stephen Smith of Liberation, Mark Huband and Patrick Robert of French photoagency Sygma (who took the above image of Liberian soldiers posing with the body of Doe)–who were present at the INPFL camp–were given the videotape. It was seen on news reports around the world and was a best selling film in West Africa. |
Even by the standards of time and other atrocities committed during the Liberian Civil War, it was a gruesome incident. One of many US supported tyrants in Africa, Samuel Doe, who ruled Liberia from 1980 to 1990. Finally his regime was toppled by Charles Taylor (who proved to be worse than Doe).
During the war, a rebel leader Prince Yormie Johnson split from Taylor’s NPFL and formed the INPFL; then he and his forces captured, tortured, and executed President Doe in Monrovia on September 9, 1990. Johnson was furious when he heard Doe was dead from bleeding profusely. He had previously ordered Doe be locked in a bathroom but Doe knocked himself out against the bathroom window causing a cerebral hemorrhage that finally killed him.
The gruesome incident was recorded by the INPFL on video tape. Journalists Stephen Smith of Liberation, Mark Huband and Patrick Robert of French photoagency Sygma (who took the above image of Liberian soldiers posing with the body of Doe)–who were present at the INPFL camp–were given the videotape. It was seen on news reports around the world and was a best selling film in West Africa. Now even two decades later, it is still doing the rounds in the markets of Monrovia; Johnson sipping a Budweiser as Doe’s ear is cut off became almost an image transplanted from a Shakespearean play or from mediaeval times.
Samuel Doe who staged a televised execution of the Tolbert government on a sunny beach became the first world leader to be tortured on camera before being executed and his body desecrated. It should have brought the nation full circle, but it did not. More violence under Taylor would kill more Liberians. It was a sad decline for Africa’s first republic.
See a short clip from the video here and Corbis archives have still shots courtesy of Robert.
» » » » [Iconic Photos]
Naomi Campbell's 'blood diamond' testimony at war crimes trial
 Naomi Campbell at the UN war crimes tribunal. Photograph: UN |
The supermodel Naomi Campbell admitted receiving "dirty looking stones" after meeting the former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. Follow Campbell's testimony at the Hague war crimes tribunal, as it happened
8.39am:
On a live feed from the court (which is on a 30 minute delay) Campbell admitted receiving "dirty looking stones". But she said she did not know whom the diamonds were from.
Campbell arrived in the court surrounded a police escort after being granted special protection for today's appearance.
She admitted meeting Charles Taylor at a dinner with Nelson Mandela in 1997. She said she sat next to Mandela and the music producer Quincy Jones. Taylor was at the same dinner. "He told us where he came from and who he was," Campbell said.
Reuters has this background:Prosecutors summoned Campbell to back their allegations that former Liberian President Charles Taylor received diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone, which they say he then used to buy weapons during a 1997 trip to South Africa. Taylor has denied the allegations as "nonsense".
 People clear bones and skulls that were on display in Kpolokpai, Liberia, Saturday, Sept 5, 2009. The remains of hundreds of people killed 15 years ago near a Liberian village are being reburied in a mass grave with a ceremony marking the massacre. The church service Sunday honoring the dead is intended to try to put to rest the 1994 Kpolokpai massacre, one of many chapters in Liberia's civil war that killed an estimated 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003. (AP Photo / Jonathan Paye-Layleh) (AP) |
8.49am:
Campbell said after the dinner two black men appeared at her the door of her room in the middle of the night with a gift for her in a pouch. "There was no explanation and no note," she said. She told Mia Farrow and her agent Carole White about the encounter the next morning. When she opened the pouch Campbell said she saw a few "dirty looking" stones.
8.54am:
Campbell said either Farrow or White said the pouch came from Charles Taylor. She said she could not remember who. Campbell said she showed the stones to her friend Jeremy Ratcliffe, director of Mandela's children charity.
Campbell said the stones looked like "dirty looking pebbles". She gave the stones to Ratcliffe and asked him to do something with them. After I gave them I didn't really care what happened to them, she said. She said there may have been three stones, but she she could not recall exactly after 13 years.
8.59am:
Jeremy Ratcliffe told Campbell that he did not have time to auction the diamonds. She said Ratcliffe still had the diamonds.
9.01am:
"I didn't know anything about Charles Taylor, I didn't know anything about Liberia, I had never heard of blood diamonds," Campbell said. But she assumed the diamonds came from Taylor.
9.03am:
Campbell said she hasn't seen Farrow since 1998. She added that when she gave the stones to Ratcliffe his wife Gayle was present.
9.04am:
"They were in my possession for like six hours," Campbell said. She said she has not seen Taylor since the dinner. She added that she did not want to be at the trial. "It is a big inconvenience.. I care about the safety of my family."
She said she did not thank Taylor for the diamonds and has had no contact with him since.
9.07am:
"I get gifts given to me all the time. It is quite normal for me," Campbell said. But she said this is the only time she was given rough diamonds. If I know the person well and I intend to keep the gifts, I send thank you notes, she said.
9.09am:
The QC for the defence begins his cross examination by saying that he does not wish to inconvenience her for very long.
He suggests it was "pure speculation" that the diamonds came from Taylor.
 Skulls & Bones: The killers used guns and machetes, witnesses said |
9.11am:
When you were asked on ABC news you denied receiving diamonds from Taylor? Campbell is asked. "I did," she replied.
She says she was alone when she received the diamonds. She said she did not give Taylor her telephone number but admitted talking to him.
She said the diamonds were very small.
9.16am:
Here's that inconvenience quote in full from PA."I don't want to be here. I was made to be here … This is an inconvenience to me," she said.
She was reluctant to attend because she wanted to protect her family, she said.
Despite believing the stones were a gift from Taylor, Campbell had no intention of thanking him. "I had no way of contacting him and I had no intention of contacting him."
9.17am:
Campbell is asked "are you a boastful person?". She replies "not really". Asked if her former agent Carole White has a powerful motive to lie about her, Campbell says "correct".
White had suggested that Taylor wanted to give Campbell some diamonds.
9.25am:
"I did not know who he [Charles Taylor] was," Campbell repeats. She denies she sat next to Taylor at the dinner, contradicting what White had claimed.
White had said that Campbell and Taylor were being "mildly flirtatious" and that he intended to send her diamonds. "That's not true," Campbell said. "I spoke in general. I was interested in Liberia. I had never heard of it before," she said denying that she was flirting with him.
9.33am:
Campbell says she did not know it was illegal to take diamonds from South Africa. She continues to deny details of a witness statement from Carole White. She denied having a conversation with White about what to do with the diamonds. And she said she could not recall whether White was present when she handed the diamonds to Ratcliffe. "She could have been," she said.
9.42am:
Campbell is asked to confirm the names of the guests at the Mandela dinner in this photo.
Nelson Mandela is pictured with guests at a party in South Africa in 1997. The interaction of Charles Taylor, Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow at the event is likely to come under the spotlight at The Hague when Farrow and Campbell appear as witnesses at Taylor's war crimes trial. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features [Guardian] |
9.46am:
Campbell said she did not discuss what to do with the diamonds with Mia Farrow. She did not talk about them until after she handed them over to Ratcliffe. "I just met Mia Farrow," she said.
"Mia Farrow has tried to contact me but I have refused to speak to her," she said.
At the breakfast table someone said the pebbles had to be diamonds, Campbell repeated.
9.51am:
Campbell is shown a letter stating that the donation manager of Mandela's children's charity categorically denying that it had received diamonds. Campbell said her lawyers have been told by Ratcliffe that he still has the diamonds.
9.55am:
The prosecution QC Brenda Hollis, begins questions again about appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. Courtenay Griffiths for the defence immediately objects, but he is overruled.
Campbell talks of the concern about her safety because of what she has read about Taylor.
Asked to clarify by the judge, Campbell says: "Read on the internet, read in newspapers, heard from friends … That's exactly why I didn't want to come here."
10.01am:
Hollis asks Campbell whether anyone has identified themselves as giving her the diamonds. "No" she replies.
She is asked again about the dinner photograph (9.42am) in which she is shown standing next to Charles Taylor. She says she can't remember when it was taken.
"Once I gave them [the diamonds] to Jeremy, they were out of my hands," Campbell says.
She did not ask for them back, she said.
 A fighter from Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) wearing a life jacket opens fire while running in a frontline street of Monrovia, Liberia Thursday, April 18, 1996. Some fighters believe that a life jacket is similar to a flak jacket, and others wear them to look bigger. Fighting was sporadic in the Liberian capital today. Rampant looting has virtually shut down humanitarian shipments. Food distribution resumed in part Wednesday, but aid officials said the danger of more violence still threatened hundreds of thousands of people dependent on the aid. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju) |
10.10am:
Hollis puts on record that Campbell is not the prosecution's witness because she has not cooperated with the trials. Whose witness is she? the judge asks. Hollis says she is a court witness. The judge says Campbell is not a court witness either.
10.13am:
I just assumed the diamonds came from Taylor, Campbell tells one of the judges on the tribunal.
Did Taylor take a ride on the blue train the next day? No, Campbell says.
That's it. Campbell is thanked for her evidence and she is escorted out.
10.17am:
Lizzy Davies, who was in the courtroom as Campbell was "inconvenienced" this morning, says the former supermodel's admission that she had never heard of Liberia was met with "horror, but also hilarity".
Lizzy tells my colleague Adam Gabbatt that the only glimpse of Campbell's darker, highly strung side, came when she declared her appearance to be "an inconvenience to me".
She says Charles Taylor, armed with five different coloured pens, was composed throughout Campbell's evidence, avidly taking notes in a blue folder.
» » » » [UK Guardian law blog]
Blatter & the Serial Murderer
Andrew Jennings
Transparency in Sport
 Blatter Honours Charles Taylor; Monrovia, 23 Nov, 1999  Blatter Honours Charles Taylor; Monrovia, 23 Nov, 1999 |
Monrovia, 23 November, 1999. FIFA President Sepp Blatter pays respect to Liberian President Charles Taylor – currently on trial at The Hague for human rights abuses.
Taylor is accused of murder, mutilation, torture, human sacrifice, cannibalism, using women and girls as sex slaves, abducting adults and children, forcing them to perform forced labour and fighters . . . and burying a pregnant woman alive in sand.
Taylor was so grateful to be honoured by anybody that he immediately awarded Liberia’s highest honour, The Humane Order of African Redemption to Blatter – who omits this from his ridiculous list of honours.
At the time of President Blatter’s trip to Liberia, President Taylor’s horrific record was well-known. That didn’t worry Blatter; he will take votes from anybody, anywhere.
He visited Monrovia to thank Taylor for his support in FIFA’s elections the previous year – and to beg for Liberia’s vote again at the next election.
Blatter helped soften Taylor’s vile image. The favour was returned when Taylor’ son-in-law Edwin Snowe, boss of Liberian football, campaigned for Blatter to be re-elected in 2002 (see chapter 22 of Foul!)
When Taylor was forced from power Edwin Snowe needed to get out of Liberia in a hurry. Who would pay? FIFA paid. Poverty stricken Liberia had an annual grant from FIFA of $250,000. Edwin was allowed to pocket it, flee to America and pretend to enrol in a Denver college to study Sports Management and Entertainment Events.
Asked how this rip-off of poor people could be justified, Blatter mouthpiece Andreas Herren announced smugly that FIFA was happy to pay for Edwin ‘to further his education.’
» » » » [Transparency in Sport (PDF)]
Liberia's Charles Taylor and the cult of the child soldiers
June 29, 2007
By Laura Lynch at The Hague, the Netherlands
 A Liberian Childsoldier |
Some of them were so young, the guns they gripped were bigger than they were. They had nicknames: Babykiller, Castrator, Ballcrusher and many others. They were children and they were soldiers in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war. Now their stories of abuse and anguish are helping to make legal history.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is on trial for his role in a war known around the world as the conflict that created "blood diamonds." Taylor faces a long list of charges stemming from his alleged backing of Sierra Leonean rebels. He is the first African head of state to be tried for war crimes. And he is the highest-ranking leader ever brought to court accused of recruiting child soldiers.
That's largely because the crime itself is so new. It was drafted into law by the International Criminal Court less than a decade ago.
» » » » [CBC News, Canada]
 Girl Child Soldiers |
Girl soldiers: Charles Taylor's legacy
Two young women from Liberia, who were forced to become child soldiers in Charles Taylor's army, recount their harrowing experience of the 14-year civil war
» » » » [Guardian.UK Video (10:00)]
The Prosecutor vs. Charles Ghankay Taylor
The Prosecution opened witness testimony on 7 January 2008. The Prosecution formally closed their case on 27 February 2009 after having presented testimony from 91 witnesses. On 4 May 2009 the Trial Chamber dismissed in its entirety a Motion for Judgment of Acquittal brought by the Defence.
The Defence opened their case on 13 July 2009.
The Indictment
Summary of the Charges
The Taylor trial proceedings are streamed over the internet, and can be watched at Hague Link 1 and Hague Link 2
The Special Court trial of Charles Ghankay Taylor is taking place in Courtroom 2 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) building, The Hague, the Netherlands.
» » » » [Excerpt: FIFA & Media Corruption, Blatter & African Mass Murderer's]
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