Farrow due to give evidence at Taylor trial

Naomi Campbell’s testimony about alleged blood diamonds at a war crimes trial will come under scrutiny today.

Naomi Campbell’s testimony about alleged blood diamonds at a war crimes trial will come under scrutiny today.

The model’s former agent Carole White and actress Mia Farrow are due to give evidence at the trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor.

They and Campbell, 40, were at a charity dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997, after which the Londoner was given a pouch of “dirty looking pebbles”.

At the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague last week, Campbell said she was never told who the gift was from, contradicting accounts from White and Farrow.

Taylor is accused of war crimes during Sierra Leone’s civil war, including using diamonds to fund rebels.

Campbell, from Streatham, south London, admitted receiving the pouch from two men in the middle of the night after the party in South Africa, in September 1997.

At breakfast, she told her former agent and Farrow about the incident.

She said: “One of the two said ’Well, that’s obviously Charles Taylor’ and I said, ’Yeah, I guess it was’.”

She also said one of the women also suggested the stones were “obviously diamonds”.

But in documents already submitted to the court, Farrow said Campbell had provided an “unforgettable story” of the incident.

She said: “She told us she had been awakened in the night by knocking at her door. She opened the door to find two or three men – I do not recall how many - who presented her with a large diamond which they said was from Charles Taylor.”

Ms White said she had even held the diamonds in her own hands.

Taylor, 62, who denies all charges against him, is alleged to have used diamonds from Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to buy arms.

He rejects allegations that he possessed or carried rough diamonds.

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