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/ 14 May 2008

Charles Taylor’s former deputy testifies

Charles Taylor’s deputy testified in the war-crimes trial of the former Liberian president on Wednesday, describing how a Sierra Leonean rebel leader answered to his boss. Moses Blah was Taylor’s vice-president from 2000 until he took over as interim president for three months in 2003 after Taylor stepped down.

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/ 8 May 2008

Court chases $375m from Charles Taylor’s banks

Prosecutors for Sierra Leone’s war crimes court are trying to track down -million they say vanished from two United States bank accounts held by former Liberian President Charles Taylor when he was forced from power in 2003. But lawyers defending the former warlord challenged prosecutors to produce evidence that Taylor had salted away state funds for his personal use.

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/ 12 March 2008

Taylor trial hears of arms-for-diamonds exchanges

A former comrade-in-arms of Charles Taylor on Wednesday told judges at the former Liberian president’s war-crimes trial that Taylor ordered him to take arms to Sierra Leone rebels and exchange them for diamonds. Joseph Marzah told the court that in the early 1990s he went to Sierra Leone about 40 times with transports carrying rifles and rockets.

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/ 15 January 2008

Charles Taylor trial hears of rebel atrocities

A former rebel fighter testified in the war-crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor on Tuesday that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone killed and raped civilians and burned their homes. Dennis Koker (39) told the Special Court for Sierra Leone how RUF rebels ”started shooting at people, killing them”.

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/ 14 January 2008

Taylor lawyers attack credibility of witness

A defence lawyer for war-crimes suspect and former Liberian president Charles Taylor on Monday attempted to destroy the credibility of a key prosecution witness at his trial, accusing him of ”always hating” the accused. Completing three days of cross-questioning, lawyer Courtenay Griffiths said the witness had a ”personal history” of plotting against Taylor.

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/ 10 January 2008

Taylor lawyers seek to discredit witness

Lawyers for Charles Taylor on Thursday sought to discredit a witness who told the court of the former Liberian president’s ties with Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone, contending that he was biased against Taylor. Defence counsel Courtenay Griffiths stressed that the witness was once one of Taylor’s sworn enemies.

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/ 8 January 2008

Liberia’s TRC panel begins public hearings

Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf appealed for honesty on Tuesday as her war-racked West African country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began its public hearings. ”I call upon all Liberians to respond to the TRC when they are invited,” Johnson-Sirleaf said at the start of proceedings in an opening ceremony in Monrovia.

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/ 7 January 2008

Taylor trial resumes with tales of brutality

A blood-diamond expert and an account from a Sierra Leonean miner who said laughing rebels hacked off his hands and burned his family opened the war-crimes trial against Liberia’s Charles Taylor on Monday. The former Liberian president, once one of Africa’s most feared warlords, faces charges of rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers.