British model Naomi Campbell told the Sierra Leone war crimes court on Thursday she had been a given pouch containing a few small diamonds while in South Africa.

Campbell was testifying before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in Leidschendam about the so-called "blood diamond" gift from ex-warlord Charles Taylor who is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sierra Leone.

"When I was sleeping I had a knock at my door and I opened my door and two men were there and gave me a pouch and said: 'A gift for you'," the model told a panel of international judges.

‘Obviously Taylor’
"I saw a few stones in there. Very small, dirty-looking stones," she said, adding "there was no explanation, no note". Campbell said she left the pouch next to her bed, went back to bed and opened it the next morning. At breakfast, she told her then modelling agent Carole White and actress Mia Farrow about the gift. "One of the two said that is obviously Charles Taylor and I said: 'Yes, I guess it was'."

She told the judges that she gave the diamonds to the former head of the Nelson Mandela Children's fund.

Denial
Because Naomi Campbell had originally refused to testify, the special court prosecutors subpoenaed her to back their allegations that former Liberian President Charles Taylor received diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone, which they say he then used to buy weapons during a 1997 trip to South Africa. Taylor has denied the allegations as "nonsense".

Campbell's story could corroborate the prosecution's claim that Taylor was in the possession of diamonds, a claim he has denied before the court. Her testimony, however, didn't meet prosecutor Branda Hollis her expectations - linking the diamonds to Charles Taylor. At the end of the morning she told the court, she doesn't see Campbell as a prosecution witness anymore.

Listen to the full testimony of Naomi Campbell

Gala and gift
In September 1997, Nelson Mandela hosted a gala celebrating the opening of South Africa's luxury passenger rail line, the Blue Line; the guests included Liberian president Charles Taylor, music producer Quincy Jones, Mia Farrow, Naomi Campbell and Carole White.

According to statements by White and Farrow, Charles Taylor was very taken with the supermodel and had his men deliver a "large rough diamond" to her room after the party had broken up. Carole White says she witnessed the diamond being delivered and Mia Farrow says Campbell told her about it the following morning. Farrow says Campbell told her that she would donate the diamond to one of Nelson Mandela's children's charities.

Farrow and White are expected to give testimony about the incident on Monday.

Taylor trial
Charles Ghankay Taylor has been on trial before the SCSL for war crimes and crimes against humanity since January 2008. He has has dismissed all allegations that he fomented war in Sierra Leone. "How could I have been micromanaging a conflict in neighbouring Sierra Leone as alleged when I, as newly elected President of the Republic of Liberia, had so much on my plate to deal with?" the former Liberian argued during his defense.

During the 1990s, Taylor went from revolutionary leader to President of Liberia. The charges against him are not for crimes committed in his homeland, or for any crimes he is alleged to have personally carried out, but for allegedly arming and supporting Sierra Leonean rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). During Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war (1991-2002), the RUF sowed death and destruction, hacking off limbs, raping women and pillaging diamond mines.

Prosecutors at the SCSL allege that Taylor bears the "greatest responsibility" for this carnage. They say they can prove that he fuelled Sierra Leone's war, through gunrunning and drug smuggling and by providing the RUF with money and weapons in exchange for uncut diamonds. These so-called 'blood diamonds' have become the main topic at the trial, which has recently moved to a new courtroom provided by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Leidschendam.

Criminal bond
As the trial opened in January 2008, prosecutors used witness testimony to show that Taylor and RUF leader Foday Sankoh established a relationship in Libya in the late 1980s, and designed a common plan to support each other's efforts to capture political power in their home countries.

The prosecution claims that this bond lasted throughout the 1990s, and when Taylor became president in 1997, he continued to provide support for the RUF and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council military junta - even as these groups were committing atrocities in Sierra Leone.

Taylor admits to working with the RUF in the early 1990s but he says it was to fight rival Liberian rebels operating on the border of Sierra Leone.

"My relationship with Sankoh was a pure and simple security relationship to protect my border, that we would fight ULIMO [United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy] in Sierra Leone without having to fight them in Liberia." But, he insists: "I say it to these judges: I, Charles Ghankay Taylor never talked to Sankoh after May of 1992 until I saw Sankoh in 1999 July in Lome. I did not."

Lack of evidence
A major obstacle for prosecutors is the fact that there's no evidence that Taylor ever set foot in Sierra Leone. Indeed, Taylor's lawyer Courtenay Griffiths has submitted photographs of Taylor travelling abroad in an effort to show that he couldn't have been in Sierra Leone at the times alleged. The prosecution's case has therefore focused on highlighting a long-standing relationship between Taylor and the RUF. Witnesses testified to regular communications taking place between Taylor and other RUF commanders such as Sam Bockarie and Issa Sesay.

Peace broker
Vital to Taylor's defence is the claim that he was acting at the behest of both the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the UN to broker peace between warring factions in Sierra Leone and negotiate with rebels to release abducted UN peacekeepers.

The SCSL has not investigated crimes committed in Liberia. However, Liberia's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called for an Extraordinary Criminal Court for Liberia to prosecute crimes committed during the back-to back civil wars. And Taylor is number one on their list of people to be brought to the dock in Monrovia.