LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands — Naomi Campbell told Mia Farrow that she received a “huge diamond” from the former president of Liberia, the actress said from the witness stand Monday, contradicting the model’s testimony that she didn’t know the value of the gift from accused war criminal Charles Taylor.
The prosecution called Farrow, and Campbell’s former agent, to testify about uncut diamonds that Taylor allegedly gave the model after a September 1997 party they all attended that was hosted by then-South African President Nelson Mandela.
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Prosecutors have pulled the celebrity witnesses into Taylor’s trial hoping they will show Taylor was in possession of at least one “blood diamond” – stones sold to fund wars.
Prosecutors say Taylor traded guns to rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in exchange for uncut diamonds during Sierra Leone’s 1992-2002 civil war, which left more than 100,000 dead in the West African nation.
Taylor says he is innocent of war crimes and has denied ever trading in diamonds.
Defense lawyers accused the prosecution of calling the unlikely witnesses as a publicity stunt to raise the profile of the trial, which has gone on for more than two years.
Campbell, who resisted appearing before the war crimes court for months, testified under subpoena Thursday that she was given several small stones by men she didn’t know after the dinner in Pretoria. The British model said she hadn’t known they were diamonds nor who had sent them, and suggested that Farrow had commented at breakfast the next morning that they were probably diamonds from Taylor.
But Farrow testified that Campbell had told other guests over breakfast in 1997 she had received a large gem from Taylor. She said Campbell said she planned to give it to charity – the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.
“She said that in the night she had been awakened, some men were knocking at the door, and they had been sent by Charles Taylor, and they had given her a huge diamond,” Farrow said.
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