The official opening ceremony of the Special Court for Sierra Leone on 10 March was expected to be a mostly symbolic affair. But on 27 February, counsel for Issa Sesay, who succeeded Foday Sankoh in 2000 as the head of the rebel movement, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), filed a motion that somewhat disrupted the day's agenda. It called for the court president Geoffrey Robertson to resign or be disqualified on the basis of extracts from a book written by the QC.
It was a classic move and one that rarely tends to succeed before international courts. On 13 March, the appeal court judges decided to retain Robertson, provided that he does not «sit on any case involving the three ex-RUF members.» «This decision does not affect the fact that he remains the president of the Special Court,» commented the Registry spokesperson Peter Andersen on Sunday 14 March, who added that the final decision «will be taken by the judges themselves outside of the court.» Nevertheless, the case presented by the defence had been convincing enough for the prosecutor himself, in a response filed on 1 March, to back the motion, and acknowledge that «the material could lead a reasonable observer, properly informed, to apprehend bias». Events accelerated on 9 March when three judges who were urgently examining the motion in the appeal court, over which Robertson presides, gave the latter until 9 a.m. on 12 March to resign or oppose the motion.

To support its motion, the defence presented seven extracts from Geoffrey Robertson\'s book, published in 2002, entitled Crimes against humanity - The struggle for global justice. In them, the author describes Sankoh as the «nation\'s butcher» of «pathological brutality», and describes in detail the «crimes against humanity» committed in his view by the RUF. «The RUF had no political agenda: its sponsor was Charles Taylor, Liberia\'s vicious warlord», he argues, before posing the question: «Given their level of barbarism, how could Sankoh and the RUF leadership ever have been invited by Western diplomats to share power?» The words read like a verdict before trial: «The RUF, guilty of atrocities of a scale that amounts to a crime against humanity, must never again be forgiven sufficiently to be accorded a slice of power: on the contrary, its leaders deserve to be captured and put on trial.» The defence then moved in for its conclusion: «It is not only the interests of the accused that are at stake here, but, more fundamentally still, the entire reputation and integrity of this court.»

This ill wind comes at a time of mounting pressure on the Special Court for Sierra Leone. During its first year, the court has achieved remarkable results: extremely rapid investigations carried out by the prosecution, a rigorous interpretation of its mandate to try a limited number of high-ranking members of the three armed groups locked in the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone for over ten years, and a registry that operates with integrity. However, there is growing concern over the Court\'s ability to complete its trials - which have not yet begun on the merits - before the June 2005 deadline that terminates its mandate. Its four most important defendants are either dead or missing. Foday Sankoh and his famous lieutenant Sam Bockarie died after being indicted. Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the military junta in power between 1997 and 1998 is either dead or on the run. Finally, Charles Taylor remains protected in his exile in Nigeria. As a result, the biggest fish in the dock is Sam Hinga Norman, the ex-head of the civil defence force and Minister of the Interior on his arrest a year ago, who is viewed by a large number of Sierra Leonean as the hero who rebelled against the combined attacks of the RUF and the government army.

A year after Norman\'s capture, our correspondent Kelvin Lewis in Freetown reports that the case continues to divide society and to fuel scepticism about the international court. People are questioning in whose interest the court was set up. Daniel Kamara, a teacher, laments: «It is difficult to imagine that a court like this was created out of concern for the welfare of the people of Sierra Leone. The international community cannot claim that for ten years they allowed people to be butchered and slaughtered, and only now after it is all over and we are supposed to be harnessing the national energies for development we are now bogged down with serious concerns about a kind of justice we are not likely to understand.»

The former British Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Peter Penfold, has announced that he will testify in Hinga Norman\'s defence. «Since people like Sankoh have died, his top RUF commander Bockarie is dead and we believe Johnny Paul Koroma is also dead. There are indications that Charles Taylor is in Nigeria with no clear evidence he will appear before the Special Court. I think that there is no point in it continuing. It has outlived its usefulness as such and it should be disbanded.» The Special Court now faces one of its biggest challenges - to reassure Sierra Leoneans over the question put by one unemployed youth: «Is this justice for us or justice for them?»
The shadow of Gaddafi

It is not the first time that the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has pointed the finger at the Libyan leader. Muammar Gaddafi has already been personally named in one indictment. But on 9 March, on the BBC, the American David Crane took his accusations one step further against the colonel whom the international community - led by the US - is welcoming back into the alliance of nations. «We know that, specifically up until last year, there was a 10-year plan to take down Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d\'Ivoire, then move to Guinea and then elsewhere as the situation developed», said the chief prosecutor, adding that the plan «was to put in surrogates who were beholden to Muammar Gaddafi.» David Crane would not confirm to the BBC whether the Libyan leader could be indicted, but implied «that all options were still open» for the time being.