His pen and notepad were already neatly packed, ready to leave the courtroom. But the judges ordered him to sit down, and two guards saw to it that the once-feared Charles Taylor witnessed the final stages of his trial for war crimes. But after the morning coffee break, the former Liberian president didn’t show up and decided to stay away for the rest of the week.

By Thijs Bouwknegt, Leidschendam

It was not the final act that American prosecutor Brenda Hollis of the Special Court for Sierra Leone had been hoping for. After a trial lasting more than three years, the final oral pleadings had been planned for last week. But Tuesday morning immediately started off with a row.

The judges had decided on Monday to decline Charles Taylor’s final brief because it was filed three weeks late. Taylor’s lawyer Courtenay Griffiths declared that decision a disgrace, and announced that he would no longer participate in this “complete farce,” after he angrily stormed out of the courtroom and announced that he was boycotting the rest of the oral pleadings.

The ever-calm Hollis was angry about the state of affairs and told the judges that Taylor was “not attending a social event. He may not RSVP at the last minute.” The judges ruled that neither Taylor, nor Griffiths were “running the court,” and let Hollis finish her plea. Taylor listened to her until the first break, but after coffee he let it be known that he wasn’t coming back because he was “very upset and he needed some rest.”

During the afternoon Hollis and her team went for the final time through the forgotten brutalities of the Sierra Leone civil war (1991-2002). She reminded the court of the drugged child soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the amputated arms and legs, and the so-called blood diamonds.
But opposite her stood an empty dock. When he was in it, the former president never even looked at her; he wore sunglasses.

Wednesday morning Taylor and Griffiths did not appear in court. They would not cooperate with the trial, said Griffiths, “unless and until these judges are prepared to accept the defence final brief and so be in a position to consider our arguments.” He filed a bid Wednesday to appeal against the ruling.

But the judges ordered Griffiths to be in court on Friday, expecting him to make an apology. He did come, but did not say a word. They did, however, allow Griffiths’ request to ask the appeals chamber to allow his final brief.

Taylor (63) pleads not guilty to eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the indictment. Griffiths, in his final brief, also repeated all the arguments to show that Taylor had nothing to do with the crimes in Sierra Leone. On the contrary, says the lawyer, Taylor has tried to build peace in the region under the watchful eye of the UN and a number of West African countries. Moreover, says Griffiths, the case against Taylor is far from solid because, he claims, most witnesses have been paid by the prosecution to testify against Taylor.

But above all, the top lawyer wants to prove that the trial is political. Griffiths had asked for a postponement of the submission of his closing statement, following some US official ‘cables’ recently released by Wikileaks. According to him, documents from the embassies in Liberia and the Netherlands suggested that the United States tried to influence the judicial process because they wanted Taylor to disappear behind bars forever.

At the end of last week’s drama, the trial was adjourned until the appeals court in Freetown has ruled on Griffiths’ appeal. Additionally, the court adjourned for two weeks to solve the separate issue of Taylor’s lawyer storming out of court last Tuesday.

Brenda Hollis now has to wait with her final request that Taylor spend the rest of his life out of the spotlight in a British jail. In fact, the trial itself has been played ‘out of the spotlight’, conducted by the cash-strapped Special Court for Sierra Leone in a courtroom borrowed from the Lebanon Tribunal near The Hague. After the first appearance of the prime suspect in court, the public lost interest in the sittings very quickly. Only once did the trial lead to a media circus when supermodel Naomi Campbell came to testify about a diamond she allegedly received from Taylor.

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Earlier IJT editions:

• 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)