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International News Title: Charles Taylor denounces war crimes trial as 'deception, deceit and lies' A sometimes tearful, often angry Charles Taylor denounced the war crimes trial against him today as a concoction of "deception, deceit and lies." The former President of Liberia — the first African head of state to be indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity — swaggered into the witness stand in the Hague to plead his innocence. "This whole case has been — Let's Get Taylor!" complained Mr Taylor, 61, in a strong, confident voice. "People have me eating human beings," he said, referring to prosecution witness testimony against him. "How could they sink so low as to think that of me?" He added, without apparent irony: "Haven't they had their pound of flesh yet?" The American-educated leader — currently held in the fortified Hague detention centre that also houses suspected Yugoslav war criminals — was determined to strike a statesmanlike pose. He was turned over to the Special Court, run jointly by the Sierra Leone Government and the United Nations, in March 2006 but this is the first time that he has talked at length about his motivations, his dealings with other African leaders and even his childhood. Mr Taylor denies all 11 charges against him — of rape and murder in Sierra Leone, of using child soldiers, of terrorising the population, of pillaging diamonds. The narrative of the prosecution is that he remotely controlled the insurgents of the RUF rebel group in Sierra Leone from across the border in Liberia where he was President between 1997 and 2003. The aim, says Stephen Rapp for the prosecution, was personal enrichment — and he accepted the use of criminal methods, indeed of butchery, in pursuit of diamond wealth. One prosecution witness says that he brought Mr Taylor a mayonnaise jar full of diamonds in return for the supply of weaponry to the Sierra Leone rebels. "This never happened, not in a mayo jar, not in a coffee jar, not in anything, I never received diamonds from the RUF," he said. "It's a lie, a diabolical lie. There's not a human who believes in the truth that diamonds were given for arms." His priority at the time was re-building his own country, Liberia, after seven years of civil war. The country, he told the court, was full of displaced people: key industries such as the timber trade had to be revived. "Some of those roads that the prosecution says we were using to transport ammunition," said Mr Taylor, briefly turning his tinted glasses to the prosecution team of Mr Rapp, "I don't think they even existed at the time." Mr Taylor started the day's proceedings presenting himself as a leader of iron disposition, an impression reinforced by his muscular build, the result perhaps of working out in the gym of the detention centre. He proudly gave his middle name as Ghankay — "it means a strong man" — but as his testimony unfolded, he painted an unlikely picture of victimhood. The US, helped by the British, had forced him out of office, he claimed, as part of their philosophy of regime change. Then he was sheltered by the Nigerians and was, he said, betrayed by Olusegun Obasanjo, who was then Nigerian President. Others especially in Liberia had also been ungrateful. His former ministers refused to answer his calls. The thought of this was enough to bring tears to his eyes; he discreetly lowered his tinted glasses so that they were visible to the court. But the main defence brief was to show that Charles Taylor — who, according to one prosecution witness, buried a pregnant woman alive as part of an extraordinary sectarian ritual — was not a monster. His grandmother, a freed American slave, was a Baptist, he said. His father was brought up by Lutheran missionaries — nothing pagan there — and had risen from cane sugar farmer to circuit judge. Interspersing his testimony with a few remembered Americanisms — "Gee, I don't know whether I can recall my Grandma's first name at this moment of time" — Charles Taylor argued that he was an idealist and, at heart, a democrat.
Poster Comment: I have an idea. Put the UN on trial for crimes agains all of humanity. Then start executing the bastards. One at a time. Pay per view. WIth the money going to poor starving children that the UN has oppressed.
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