He has no blood on his hands. And definitely no Sierra Leonean blood. That’s what former warlord and Liberian President, Charles Taylor, will argue this coming week in The Hague.
 

In the 1990s, Mr Taylor managed to go from being a ‘revolutionary’ to Liberia’s president. But now he is being tried in the Hague. Not for crimes in his own country, but for waging a campaign of terror in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
 

Death and destruction
Sierra Leone was the arena in which child soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) sowed death and destruction. With their machetes, they hacked off limbs at random, raped women and pillaged diamond mines.
 

Prosecutors of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, temporarily housed in the International Criminal Court, hold Mr Taylor responsible for these war crimes and human rights abuses. They say they have proof that he supported the Sierra Leone rebels, giving them money and weapons in exchange for diamonds.
 

Defence
Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp has brought almost hundred witnesses to The Hague this past year to prove there is a link between Charles Taylor and the atrocities in Sierra Leone. The former president maintains he is innocent.
 

On Monday it will be the defence’s turn. Mr Taylor’s lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, is confident. He has a list with 256 names of witnesses of which he wants at least 91 to be brought to The Hague.
 

Mr Taylor, who always wears sunglasses because of an eye problem, will take his place on the witness stand on Tuesday. He has never before spoken in depth about his role in the Sierra Leone conflict.
 

Liberia
The court in The Hague will not be examining human rights abuses committed in Mr Taylor’s homeland. Although he has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed there between 1997 and 2003.
 

Last week, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission published a report documenting nearly three decades of human rights abuses. The Commission believes there should be a special tribunal in Monrovia where former Liberian warlords can be tried.
 

Number one on their list is Charles Taylor. But it is highly doubtful whether he will ever return home to account for his misgovernment. And even if he were to be acquitted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Liberia does not have the means or the ability to conduct a credible trial.
 

Libya
Mr Taylor’s involvement in Sierra Leone began in the late 1980s in Libya. He met the Liberian Foday Sankoh, who later became a rebel leader in Sierra Leone, at Muammar al-Ghaddafi’s ‘World Revolutionary Headquarters’. Together they devised a plan, funded by Libya, enabling Foday Sankoh to help Mr Taylor establish control, first in Liberia and then in Sierra Leone.
 

Charles Taylor invaded Liberia on Christmas Eve in 1989. Two years later, Liberian rebels helped Mr Sankoh’s RUF in Sierra Leone. In the ten years that followed, civil wars tore the two countries apart.
 

The ultimate plan to govern the two West African countries eventually failed. Foday Sankoh was imprisoned by his rivals and Charles Taylor resigned as president in 2003. In that same year, Mr Sankoh was also charged by the Sierra Leone Tribunal in Freetown. But the former photographer died before he ever saw the courtroom. The only big catch left for the Special Court is 61-year-old Charles Taylor.