Charles Taylor boycotts his own trial

RNW, 9 February 2011, by Thijs Bouwknegt

(Photo: ANP)

His pen and notepad were already neatly packed, ready to leave the courtroom. But the judges formally ordered him to sit down, and two guards saw to it that the once-feared Charles Taylor witnessed the final stages of his trial for war crimes. But after the morning coffee break, the former Liberian president didn’t show up.

It was not the final act that American prosecutor Brenda Hollis of the Special Court for Sierra Leone had been hoping for. After a trial lasting more than three years, the final scheduled oral pleadings had been planned for this week. But Tuesday morning immediately started off with a row.

Angry

The judges had decided on Monday to decline Charles Taylor's closing statement because it was filed three weeks late. Taylor's lawyer Courtenay Griffiths declared that decision a disgrace, and announced that he would no longer participate in "this farce". He then angrily walked out of the courtroom and announced that he was boycotting the rest of the oral pleadings.

The always calm Hollis was angry about the state of affairs and told the judges that Taylor had not been brought before the tribunal for fun, and that he couldn’t make any last-minute reservations. 'Correct', said the judges, and let Hollis finish her plea. Taylor heard about this during the first break, and let it be known that he wasn’t coming back because he "was upset and had to rest."

Orgy of violence

All afternoon Hollis and her team of international prosecutors together went for the final time through the forgotten brutalities of the Sierra Leone civil war. She reminded the court of the drugged child soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the severed arms and legs, and the so-called blood diamonds.

The chief prosecutor stressed again that it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Taylor was personally responsible for the orgy of murder, threats and mutilation in Sierra Leone. But opposite her remained an empty dock. The former president had never even looked at her; he wore sunglasses.

Pleas of innocence

Taylor (63) pleads not guilty to all eleven counts in the indictment. Attorney Griffiths, in his final act, also repeated all the arguments to show that Taylor had nothing to do with the crimes in Sierra Leone. On the contrary, said the lawyer, Taylor had just tried to build peace in the region under the watchful eye of the UN and a number of West African countries. Moreover, said Griffiths, the case against Taylor is far from solid because, he claimed, most witnesses have been paid by the prosecution to testify against Taylor.

But above all, the top lawyer wants to prove that a political process is going on. Griffiths had asked for a postponement for the submission of his closing statement, following some US official messages recently leaked via Wikileaks. According to him, documents from the embassies in Liberia and the Netherlands suggested that the United States tried to influence the judicial process because they want Taylor to disappear behind bars forever.

Out of the spotlight

Because of the decision of Griffiths and Taylor not to appear before the court, the trial has now been adjourned until Friday, when prosecutor Brenda Hollis is likely to request that Taylor spends the rest of his life out of the spotlight in a British jail. ‘Out of the spotlight’ is also a good way to describe the whole trial, carried out by the impoverished Sierra Leone tribunal in a courtroom borrowed from the Lebanon Tribunal in the Dutch town of Leidschendam.

After the first appearance of the prime suspect in the tribunal and the flying in of severely mutilated victims, interest in the sittings began to dry up very quickly. Only once did the trial lead to a media circus when supermodel Naomi Campbell came to testify about a diamond she was said to have received from Taylor.

After the brief theatre on Tuesday morning, it remained silent again on Wednesday in Leidschendam. Griffiths has already appealed against the decision of the judges not to accept his closing document. He and Taylor say they will continue to boycott the trial until a decision comes from the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown.

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