Taylor boycotts war crimes trial, judge proceeds

THE HAGUE: Former Liberian president Charles Taylor boycotted the opening of his landmark war crimes trial here Monday, arguing that he would never receive a fair hearing.    However, presiding judge Julia Sebutinde said the trial before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), specially transplanted to The Hague, would go ahead in his absence.   

The first African head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international tribunal, Taylor, 59, stands accused of controlling rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone that went on a blood diamond-financed rampage of rape and mutilation.  

In a letter read out in the courtroom by his defence lawyer Karim Khan, Taylor, who has been in custody in The Hague for the past year, refused to attend the proceedings.  "I am driven to conclude that I will not receive a fair trial before the Special Court at this time and I must decline to attend hearings," he said, arguing that he had only one counsel compared to nine for the prosecution.   

"I cannot take part in this charade that does injustice to the people of Liberia and the people of Sierra Leone," he added.  The court then directed Khan to continue representing his client, but the lawyer refused and walked out of court. "If that's the decision you have taken, so be it," Sebutinde said, directing another member of the defence team, Charles Jalloh, to represent Taylor during the prosecution's opening statement.   

The tribunal was moved to The Hague after the authorities decided there could be unrest if the case was tried in Freetown, the seat of the court. Taylor was captured in March last year and flown to the Netherlands from Sierra Leone three months later. He faces 11 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1991-2001 civil war in Sierra Leone, considered one of the most brutal in modern history.

Up to 200,000 people were killed in the fighting and rebels mutilated thousands more, cutting off arms, legs, ears or noses. Taylor allegedly armed, trained and controlled Sierra Leone's notorious Revolutionary United Front, responsible for many of the mutilations, in exchange for still-unknown amounts of diamonds used to fund warfare, the so-called blood diamonds. He has denied all the charges.   

In Sierra Leone there was relief that Taylor was finally going on trial nearly four years after he was indicted. "It has taken so long in coming that our memories were beginning to fade," war victim Ansumana Turay, whose hands were hacked off during the civil war, told AFP in Freetown.    "There can be no peace without justice and that is what this case stands for," said Stephen Rapp, the prosecutor for the SCSL.   

With his war crimes trial in The Hague, Taylor follows in the footsteps of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who was the first ever head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international court

Taylor's lawyer protested the change of venue, saying it affected the former president's right to a fair trial. Some human rights organisations and victims have also complained about the move to The Hague, saying it would be better for the victims in Sierra Leone to see him judged there.

 "My only regret is that he is not going to be tried here. I would have liked to see him physically in the dock," said Sam Tobias, another war victim from Sierra Leone who was starved of food and water for several days and forced to dig for diamonds.

The trial is expected to finish within 18 months, before Christmas 2008.  If convicted, the statute of the Sierra Leone tribunal states that Taylor must be sentenced to "imprisonment for a specified number of years" without giving a maximum. Under the deal to relocate the trial to the Netherlands, it was agreed that if convicted Taylor will serve his sentence in a British jail.