Former warlord Charles Taylor protested his innocence on Tuesday during his first day of testimony at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague.

"I, Charles Ghankay Taylor, am not guilty of all these charges. Not even a minute part of these charges. This whole case is about 'Let's get Taylor. Destroy him, bring him down.' Haven't they had their pound of flesh yet? I am not guilty of all these charges."

Addressing the Court's four judges, the former Liberian president looked relaxed and confident, barely pausing or hesitating as he took the court through a potted history of 20th-century West African politics. At one point, Presiding Judge Richard Lussick asked him to slow down to allow the court stenographer to keep up.

Sierra Leone
Mr Taylor is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Although he never set foot in Sierra Leone until his 2006 arrest, the prosecution alleges that he supported, ordered and condoned atrocities - including murder, rape, amputations, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers - committed by Revolutionary United Front rebels during the country's civil war.

During the prosecutorial phase of the trial, Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp alleged that Taylor provided the RUF with weapons in exchange for 'mayonnaise jars' filled with diamonds.

"There's not one person who speaks the truth who can say I, Charles Ghankay Taylor dealt with the RUF, taking diamonds for arms. Never, ever. Whether it's mayonnaise jars, or coffee jars, or whatever jars. It's a lie, it's a diabolical lie. Never."

Arming the RUF
He admitted to providing 'small amounts' of weapons and ammunition to the RUF between August 1991 and May 1992, so that they would help Mr Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia secure the country's borders against attacks. But he said it would have been impossible for him to exercise control over the events in Sierra Leone.

Taylor also admitted to negotiating with RUF rebels after being elected to Liberia's presidency in 1997, but only at the request of other African heads of state who were trying to bring an end to Sierra Leone's bloody civil war, he said.

"Upon being elected, jokingly, my colleagues said to me, we have a problem continuing in Sierra Leone and you are an old rebel so you know how to deal with rebels....So I laughed and said, I'm no longer a rebel but I can do what I can to help so I was placed on the committee...to help bring peace to Sierra Leone." 

Taylor's testimony is expected to continue for at least another six weeks.

He has been held by the court since 2006 after being arrested in Nigeria where he had spent three years in enforced exile.

Trial in The Hague
The trial is being conducted by the UN-backed Sierra Leone Tribunal in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown but Taylor's case was moved to the ICC premises in The Hague for fear that his appearance in an African courtroom could destabilise Sierra Leone and Liberia.

It's unlikely that a verdict will be reached for at least another year.