“Throw it in the bin. That is what we submit the court should do with this body of evidence: Get rid of it. We submit it’s garbage.” That was the message of Charles Taylor’s lawyers during closing arguments at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). And besides, they said, “why is Colonel Muammer Gaddafi not in the dock?”

By Thijs Bouwknegt, Leidschendam

“Most definitely, Your Honour, I did not and could not have committed these acts against the sister Republic of Sierra Leone.” It is April 3rd, 2006 and Charles Taylor appeared for the first time in the dock in Freetown. “[…] so most definitely I am not guilty.” That same message was echoed in the courtroom last week.

Friday was his last trial day. He pours some water into his glass. The former Liberian president listens to the last words of Chief Prosecutor Brenda Hollis. He scribbles notes on yellow post-its but appears a bit nervous. He folds a paper aircraft.

Taylor’s defence team summed up their arguments that Taylor had nothing to do with a campaign of terror in Sierra Leone. On the contrary, they say, Taylor is not a war criminal and his “role in Sierra Leone was entirely peaceful.”

“This Prosecution has been selective,” said lead counsel Courtenay Griffiths on Wednesday. He pointed to the empty seats behind him. “So why is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi not in the dock?” stressing that the tribunal was “set up to try those who bear the greatest responsibility.”

In February, Hollis took the court back to the forgotten brutalities of the Sierra Leonean civil war. She reminded the judges of the drugged child soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the chopped-off arms and legs and so-called ‘blood diamonds.’ Taylor was at “the very centre of the web of these crimes,” Hollis repeated on Friday. “He was the one who had control over the leaders of these groups perpetuating such horrific crimes.”

The golden thread in this case: Taylor forged a plan with RUF leader Foday Sankoh in Libya in the late eighties to conquer west Africa to enrich themselves with diamonds from Sierra Leone. Their means; a campaign of terror. Hollis stresses that she and her team have proved “beyond any reasonable doubt” Taylor was personally responsible for the orgy of murder, threat and mutilation. “We ask you to enter convictions on all of the counts of the indictment,” Hollis concluded.

Sankoh died before going on trial and the defence feels that Taylor became the scapegoat for the Sierra Leone war. Also, that while Gaddafi trained him in Libya and sent him money - the presidents of Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso had dirty hands as well.

Griffiths gave his best on Wednesday. Now and then he wiped drops of sweat from his forehead. The crux of his argument: “This Prosecution is politically motivated.” He went on saying, “whether you are princess or prostitute, whether you are the President of the United States or the President of Liberia, the law is above you. That is the essence of the rule of law. Whether that currently is the case is a matter of debate.”

The lawyer referred to two recently leaked US code cables from the embassies in Monrovia and The Hague. He suggests that Washington wants Taylor to disappear behind bars forever. He sneered that the prosecutors had “besmirched the lofty ideals of international criminal law by turning this case into a 21st century form of neo-colonialism.”

“A perverse logic,” said Hollis, who claimed that the defence “has tried to transform the trial into a political and propaganda platform for Charles Taylor.” Indeed, Taylor himself starred in the show for seven months as a witness in his very own trial. The prosecutor remains confident of her case. Since January 2008, Hollis and her team have flown 94 witnesses to the Netherlands to support their case, among them a number of severely mutilated victims, but also experts and direct evidence of Taylor’s actions.

But Taylor’s lawyers said the insider witness accounts were inconsistent and tainted.

Defence counsel Terry Munyard on Thursday said “money has been used to pollute the pure waters of justice,” and asked the court not to turn “a blind eye” to the effects on the evidence.

Closing the hearing, Presiding Judge Teresa Doherty said the judges will now deliberate. Taylor will await judgement in the next few months. “He will be reading no doubt,” says Griffiths, adding he is looking after “his welfare, does his own cooking and speaks a lot with the other African and Yugoslav detainees in Scheveningen.”

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Earlier IJT editions:

• International Justice Tribune, 123 (2 March 2011)
• International Justice Tribune, 122 (16 February 2011)
• International Justice Tribune, 121 (2 February 2011)
• International Justice Tribune, 120 (19 January 2011)
• International Justice Tribune, 119 (14 December 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 118 (1 December 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 117 (17 November 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 116 (2 November 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 115 (20 October 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 114 (4 October 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 113 (21 September)
• International Justice Tribune, 112 (8 September 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 111 (25 August 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 110 (14 July 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 109 (30 June 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 108 (16 June 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 107 (2 June 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 106 (19 May 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 105 (5 May 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 104 (21 April 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 103 (7 April 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 102 (24 March 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 101 (10 March 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 100 (24 February 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 99 (10 February 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 98 (27 January 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 97 (13 January 2010)
• International Justice Tribune, 96 (23 December 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 95 (9 December 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 94 (25 November 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 93 (11 November 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 92 (28 October 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 91 (14 October 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 90 (30 September 2009)
• International Justice Tribune, 89 (16 September 2009)