Trial of Liberia’s Taylor Opens With Blood Diamond Testimony
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president, heard its first testimony yesterday and saw video of victims telling of being sexually assaulted or dismembered by rebels who plundered West African diamond fields.
The trial before the international tribunal in this Dutch city resumed following a six-month break, having been adjourned in June after Mr. Taylor boycotted proceedings and fired his lawyer. Back in court, Mr. Taylor looked confident and blew a kiss to supporters in the gallery as his new lawyers challenged the prosecution to prove that he was behind the widespread murder, rape, and amputations during Sierra Leone’s civil war.
Prosecutors allege the so-called “blood diamonds” mined in Sierra Leone were smuggled through neighboring Liberia and that Mr. Taylor used the profits to arm the rebels. Mr. Taylor, 59, is accused of orchestrating the violence from his presidential palace in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. He has pleaded innocent to all 11 charges. He is the first former African head of state to face an international tribunal.
The opening testimony came from Ian Smillie, a Canadian expert on conflict diamonds. He said miners, many of them kidnapped and enslaved by Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, or RUF, dug up diamonds worth between $60 million and $125 million each year.
Mr. Smillie interviewed Mr. Taylor as part of a U.N. team that investigated arms smuggling in Liberia in 2000. Mr. Taylor conceded that Sierra Leone diamonds likely were being smuggled in and out of Liberia, but denied involvement. But Mr. Smillie stood by the findings of his team’s report and read out a summary that was included in a 2001 U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Mr. Taylor’s regime.
The resolution said diamonds smuggled through Liberia were the key source of RUF income “and that such illicit trade cannot be conducted without the permission and involvement of Liberian government officials at the highest levels,” Mr. Smillie told judges.
He also explained why the chopping off of hands was turned into the signature atrocity of the 10-year Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2003 — “to create such a fear of the RUF that the areas would be cleared for them to do whatever they wanted.”
