The Hague: Actress Mia Farrow told a war crimes court on Monday that she had heard supermodel Naomi Campbell say she had been given a “huge diamond” by Charles Taylor when he was Liberia’s President. Campbell appeared at the Special Court for Sierra Leone last week and said she had been given “dirty looking pebbles” after a 1997 charity dinner in South Africa, but did not know if they were diamonds from Taylor, who is on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In court on Monday, Farrow said she had seen Campbell join a group of guests at breakfast after the dinner, hosted by South African President Nelson Mandela, and that the British model had immediately started relating something that had happened overnight. “She said in the night she had been awakened by men knocking at her door that said they had been sent to her by Charles Taylor, and they had given her a huge diamond,” Farrow told the court, adding that Campbell had been “quite excited” about it. Farrow said Campbell had then said she intended to give the diamond to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, adding that “it was a sort of an unforgettable moment”.
Later in the day, Campbell’s ex-agent told the trial that Campbell received a late-night gift of diamonds which Charles Taylor had promised her over dinner just hours before. Two men arrived at the guesthouse where Campbell was staying after a dinner where she witnessed Taylor promise her then client the gift of gems, model agent Carole White said. “They took out a quite scruffy paper and handed it to Ms Campbell and said, ‘These are the diamonds’,” White testified. “She showed it to me. She was quite disappointed because they were not shiny.”