The war-crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been delayed again after his new lawyers asked for more time to study the case, the court announced on Monday.
”The Charles Taylor trial will not proceed on August 20 as originally scheduled,” Solomon Moriba, a spokesperson for the United Nations-backed Sierra Leone tribunal trying Taylor said in a statement.
The judges will instead hold a procedural hearing to determine when the trial will start up again. Taylor’s new defence team has asked for the trial to be adjourned until January 7 2008.
Taylor (59), the first African head of state to stand trial before an international court for war crimes, boycotted the opening in June and sacked his lawyer on the ground that he had no chance of receiving a fair hearing.
Once one of Africa’s most feared warlords, Taylor has pleaded not guilty to all 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and using child soldiers during the brutal 1991 to 2001 civil war in Sierra Leone.
Up to 200 000 people were killed in the Sierra Leone conflict, with rebels mutilating thousands more, cutting off arms, legs, ears or noses.
Taylor was also a key player in his country’s back-to-back civil wars, which spanned 14 years.
After judges ordered the court’s registrar to make more money available for Taylor’s defence, a new team was put together, led by British lawyer Courtenay Griffiths.
The trial officially opened on June 4 but the case got bogged down by legal wrangling over Taylor’s defence and was delayed several times.
Taylor is accused of arming, training and controlling the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) group of Sierra Leone, responsible for many of the mutilations, in exchange for still-unknown amounts of diamonds used to fund war.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone moved the trial to The Hague following fears expressed by the Liberian government that a trial in Freetown, the official seat of the court, could cause fresh unrest in the region. — Sapa-AFP