Charles Taylor is accused of selling “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone<\/p>\n
The lawyer for Liberia’s ex-President Charles Taylor has said the prosecution has turned his war crimes trial into a “21st Century form of neo-colonialism”.<\/p>\n
Courtenay Griffiths made the comments in his closing arguments at the special UN Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague.<\/p>\n
Mr Taylor is the first former African leader to face such an international tribunal.<\/p>\n
He denies 11 counts, including murder, rape, and using child soldiers during the civil war in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n
He is accused of arming and controlling the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels during a 10-year campaign of terror conducted largely against civilians.<\/p>\n
The RUF became infamous for hacking off the limbs of their victims, and using rape and murder to terrorise the population.<\/p>\n
‘Why not Gaddafi?’<\/p>\n
During his closing argument, Mr Griffiths told judges that justice should be applied equally to all.<\/p>\n
He asked why Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was not in the dock.<\/p>\n
Taylor Timeline<\/p>\n
He said that it was because the British government of former Prime Minister Tony Blair had wanted to pursue their economic interests in Libya.<\/p>\n
“It is to the shame of this prosecution that it has besmirched the lofty ideals of international criminal law by turning this case into a 21st Century form of neo-colonialism,” Mr Griffiths said.<\/p>\n
The defence lawyer also said no-one had taken any notice of the case until supermodel Naomi Campbell and a Hollywood actress had turned up, and since then it had returned to obscurity.<\/p>\n
Ms Campbell and actress Mia Farrow were summoned to give evidence at the trial last August.<\/p>\n
The prosecution was trying to establish a link between Mr Taylor and a number of uncut diamonds that Ms Campbell said she was given in South Africa in 1997.<\/p>\n
Mr Taylor is accused of selling “blood diamonds” for the rebels, in return for supplying them with weapons.<\/p>\n
The defence has argued that Mr Taylor tried to broker peace in Sierra Leone at the request of regional powers.<\/p>\n
The trial, which is entering its final phase, was delayed for several weeks over a legal wrangle, but last week the defence team won its appeal to file its final brief.<\/p>\n
It had missed its January deadline because it said new evidence had come to light.<\/p>\n
The Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague has heard from more than 100 witnesses in what is the first international trial of an African former head of state.<\/p>\n
The trial has already lasted more than three years and the judges are expected to deliver a verdict later in the year.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Mr Taylor would serve a prison sentence in the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n BBC News<\/em><\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n Charles Taylor is accused of selling “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone The lawyer for Liberia’s ex-President Charles Taylor has said the prosecution has turned his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,751,1],"tags":[2443,5492],"class_list":["post-20501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-global-news","category-uncategorized","tag-charles-taylor-trial","tag-sierra-leone-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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