The Warlord, the Supermodel and the Dirty Diamonds
Supermodels might do well to keep their manicured hands out of global politics, judging by the case of Naomi Campbell and her questionable link to ousted Liberian President Charles Taylor (continued).
Supermodels might do well to keep their manicured hands out of global politics, judging by the case of Naomi Campbell and her questionable link to ousted Liberian President Charles Taylor, whose reported gift of a bagful of uncut diamonds in 1997 has landed the temperamental model in a bit of a diplomatic pickle 13 years later. Also guest-starring in this strange tale is Mia Farrow, who has also taken the stand to discuss the dirty diamonds at Taylor’s war-crimes trial in The Hague. –KA
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Mr Taylor denies 11 charges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting in The Hague, and he has denied having anything to do with the trade in so-called blood diamonds.
According to Ms White, Mr Taylor and Ms Campbell had been “mildly flirtatious” with each other at the 1997 dinner in South Africa, hosted by Nelson Mandela who was the country’s president at the time.
Mr Taylor told the supermodel during dinner that he would send some men to give her diamonds, Ms White told the hearing.
“We were sitting around this lounge area at about 10 o’clock at night and we were waiting for these men to arrive,” Ms White said.
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Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, took the stand on Tuesday to defend himself against 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The first African leader to be tried by an international tribunal, Taylor is deemed responsible for atrocities committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), in a tale of murder, rape, amputations, child soldiers and diamonds.
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has found a new religion, reports say. The one-time African dictator, on trial at The Hague accused of crimes against humanity, has decided to convert to Judaism. According to one of his wives, after arriving in the Netherlands "he got to know that he really, really wanted to be a Jew."
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