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Screen grab of Farrow giving evidence today.
# War Crimes
Naomi's diamond testimony comes under fire
Mia Farrow contradicts model’s statement at Special Court for Sierra Leone.
ACTRESS MIA FARROW has contradicted Naomi Campbell’s evidence at the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor is facing a range of charges for human rights abuses, including murder, rape and terrorism.
Last week, Campbell said she had received the uncut diamonds in the middle of the night after a dinner party in 1997.
She said she only realised that the “dirty-looking stones” were diamonds the next morning when discussing the incident at breakfast with her former agent Carole White and Mia Farrow, and didn’t know where they were from.
The model said either White or Farrow had suggested to her that it was Charles Taylor who had sent the unmarked gift.
Today, Farrow said Campbell was the first to suggest Taylor was behind the gift, and that the model had acknowledged the gift was a diamond.
Farrow said:
She said in the night she had been awakened by men knocking at her door that said they had been sent to her by Charles Taylor, and they had given her a very huge diamond.
When questioned by the court specifically about whom had initially suggested Taylor’s involvement, Farrow said “Naomi Campbell.”
She said Campbell’s intention was to give the diamond to Nelson Mandela’s children’s charity.
Campbell told the court last week that she had presented the stones to her friend Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was running the charity at the time. A statement released by Ratcliffe after Campbell’s testimony said he had been given the stones and kept them ever since, but had recently handed them over to authorities.
Ratcliffe said he didn’t want to involve the charity in anything illegal and decided it would be better to keep them.
