Nicholas Koumjian, who has been leading the cross-examination of Charles Taylor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, ended the last hearing of the year with a dramatic piece of evidence: a previously unseen statement from a personal bank account opened by the defendant in December 1999.  

By Franck Petit

The former Liberian president is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to his role in Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Taylor - who has always claimed that “no one, no human being has ever come up and said, ‘Here is a bank account with a million dollars belonging to Mr Taylor’” - acknowledges the existence of the account at the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment, but rejects prosecutors’ suggestions that he used it to hide illicit funds. It was a “covert account opened up by the Government of Liberia during this period, to fight our war”, Taylor told the court.

The prosecution focused on two major deposits made in 2000: 2 million dollars from Natura Holdings, whose Dutch owner was accused and later acquitted of illegal arms sales; and 3.5 million dollars from the Taiwanese embassy in Monrovia.

“The total for nine months, Mr Taylor, $10,842,268.93”, said Koumjian. “Why is it covert? Because it’s going into your pocket?”

“No, Mr Koumjian. We were accumulating money. That’s how we managed to pay for the arms that I have said that I ordered in 2001,” Taylor replied. Arms paid “in cash” to Serbia, he added, but said he “can’t remember” millions of dollars of transactions shown by the bank statement. “It was used for covert activities”, admits Taylor.

Taylor’s cross-examination will continue when the trial resumes in January.

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