CharlesTaylorTrial.org (The Hague)
Tracey Gurd
13 July 2009
The Hague — Charles Taylor is not a war criminal but a peacemaker turned scapegoat by the international community. This was the message put forward by Taylor's defense in its opening statement today.
Charles Taylor's lawyer told a packed courtroom today that his client will declare his trial "political" and "set the historical record straight" that he was trying to bring peace, not foment war.
According to Courtenay Griffiths, lead defense counsel, Taylor was a peacemaker. He was acting at the behest of West African states and the United Nations to broker peace between the warring factions in neighboring Sierra Leone, negotiate with rebels to set free abducted UN peacekeepers, and usher one of the most prominent rebel leaders, Sam Bockarie, out of Sierra Leone to help calm the conflict. Taylor took on this peacemaking role as the leader of the "Committee of Five," a group set up by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) designed to bring peace to Sierra Leone.
The Informer
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Griffiths told the court that the trial was "political" because others who should have answered a case before the Special Court–such as the then Sierra Leonean president, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah–were not indicted. Taylor's role in the conflict was skewed to suggest he bore the "greatest responsibility" for crimes committed during the war. Griffiths also suggested that Taylor's indictment suited western powers such as the United States and United Kingdom who wanted "regime change" in Liberia.
Griffiths—a charismatic advocate who infused his opening statement with a quote from Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley and held up a sign to the public gallery that stated "Charles Taylor is innocent" before the judges entered the courtroom—listed a litany of problems he saw with the prosecution's case. Griffiths complained that the prosecution's case was like a "lucky dip" because of its failure to settle on one consistent formula of joint criminal enterprise (a form of criminal liability) in its indictment, questioned the strength of the evidence linking Taylor to the alleged crimes, and stated that he would "expose" the prosecution's "corruption."
"Evidence has been bought and secured through favors," Griffiths said. "Justice cannot be polluted in this way."
Griffiths also accused former Special Court prosecutor, David Crane, of trying to "scupper" peace talks for Liberia that Taylor attended in Ghana in 2003 by unsealing the indictment against Taylor at the same time. He said Crane later described this move as an effort to "publicly strip this warlord of his power." Griffiths pondered "such ego and hubris" before quoting a Bob Marley lyric: Crane, he said, was "working iniquity to achieve vanity."
The central question of the case, Griffiths went on to tell the court, was whether the prosecution could show that Taylor was responsible for the alleged crimes. As Liberian President, not only was Taylor fully occupied with attacks on his own country which would not allow him to "micromanage" a conflict in a neighboring country, but as a West African leader and member of ECOWAS, he was "placed on the frontline" to bring peace to Sierra Leone, Griffiths said.
In an unusual move, prosecutor Stephen Rapp interjected during Griffiths' opening statement. Rapp objected because the defense was commenting on the prosecution's case rather than setting out the evidence his team will present. At the time, Griffiths was describing the breakdown of the prosecution's linkage and crime-based witnesses. The judges overruled the objection. Griffiths called the interjection "rude."
In a press briefing following the defense's opening statement, Rapp rebutted claims of corruption and described the legitimate forms of payments that could be made to witnesses to cover costs of testifying, including travel and lost wages. Rapp said the prosecution's formulations of joint criminal enterprise were fundamentally consistent throughout the case and that Griffith's "lucky dip" description "mischaracterizes the case from the beginning." He also refuted the notion that the trial was political, and said that Taylor was on trial because he had a case to answer for serious crimes.
"I am here because of the victims of Sierra Leone–they are the people who suffered," Rapp told reporters.
Meanwhile Charles Taylor, in a gray suit wearing his signature tinted glasses, sat silently throughout the opening statement, occasionally looking into the public gallery while fiddling with scraps of paper. In highly anticipated testimony, he will take the stand tomorrow as the defense's first witness.
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Well,there is another celebration coming for West Africa because the Nobel Prize Award Group is about throw another Award to the Fo- rmer Liberian Leader,Charles Taylor.He'll be Awarded a 'Nobel Prize for his achievable Peace Efforts in Sierra Leone'.
Oh,Courtnay Griffiths,give me a break!You confused Lawyer' telling us that your client was a "Peacemarker?" I don't want to see such a "Peacemarker" for the state of Palestine.We are watching closely.
i followed the trial live today. And even If taylor wasn't a peacemaker, he made a point about the US goverment. And i think it's real. Liberia is being use and ignore all the time.
I think you should save ur tune for those in sierra leone. because they did bad thinks to their own people. Taylor led war in liberia not sierra leone. We didn't hear them say liberians did it. so leave taylor alone.
I'm glad that you followed the trail.Yes,he made a point,just as any Armed Robber will stand to defend his/her position after armed robbing a neighbourhood that left morethan a dozen people dead.Taylor is quite known for his 'skipping lies tactics'.
Did you hear him? "I've never,ever!" This is very interesting to me when I picture the one time Taylor in my radal.Let's watch and see how it ends.
Every stupid African I hear from, they only talk of "Western Conspiracy" on Taylor.This is a bloody mess!Those guys are the ones who see the wrong that we do to our people in Afrrica.Left only with some stupid Africans, it's like bread and butter for them.I say it's nonsense to all those who talk on this issue of conspiracy on 'danger, diabolical Taylor'.
Conspiracy!just as the Taylor conspired with RUF,AFRC to destroy the people of Sierra Leone.Do you all know, how we eat,sleep and walk today? It's a shame to some Africans that up to this day,we've not realised to acknowledge and denounce evil in all forms.
Same as Mr. Cainer writes today "In war, there are no winners. In love, there are no losers. We all understand this, yet we all conveniently (or rather, inconveniently) forget it. We convince ourselves that if we fight with all our might for a cause that we believe to be right, we will emerge victorious and vindicated - rather than scarred forever by our tragic losses. " I wish for all to agree with that.
Scapegoat in some ways, true, for many others that are in a protected situation today ( that managed and financed the Civil War ). But he may be used as a scaring case to all present and future leaders of Africa that do not obey the golden rules of so called "Democracy "(imposed by whom and in whose favour?). That was his fate:to be used by his makers (same as the Saddam Husein`s case ). He must knew all about that. He was not a full. That was the dangerous game he played.All he can do now, is to pray for his former associates to be well and that they should pray for his good , too. In jail he has the opportunity to benefit from meditation, prayer that are good for his salvation. God does not want the troubled people dead, but alive and on the path of sainthood. That is his big chance in life for him.The biggest of all. He should be grateful to God for that (especially if he did the things people hold him responsable). May God help him to better himself.
Taylor trial is mere formality and the guy is guilty. As a Liberian I am ashame of Taylor defense disrepecting the victims of Sierra Leone and that of Liberia for all the war crime this idiot committed against the sub region. Let the man rotten in Jail like his son.
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(ICC, To Pronounce Guilt, or To Establish Guilt - A matter yet to be decided) It is not certain whether the trial of former Liberian President Charles G. Taylor will be free and fair. It appears to me that for all I see, this trial was politically motivated, a conspiracy against one of the few Pan-Africanist, who the west wants to silenced. It is apparent that a global media campaign has been staged to demonize and condemn the accused even before he is heard. As a powerful global tool, the international media seems to stress the claims of tragic crimes committed during the Sierra Leone war, but fail to blame the hands of those that directly committed those crimes, who themselves are Sierra Leoneans. As one who lived and experienced the worse of the Liberian civil crisis for 14 years, and a victim of violence I suffered and saw others suffered, with reasons to be infuriated with former President Taylor, am instead baffled at the shameless display of so-called justice. Sierra Leoneans must be made to take responsibility for the gruesome crimes they committed against their own people, whether out of frustration over internal politicking or ethnic dispirited or for gain of what is now referred to as the 'infamous blood diamond'. Therefore, if the west have other reasons to apprehend former President Taylor, let them raise the charges and forget about the fiasco of "Taylor bears greater responsibility for the atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone civil war." If they have no charge at all against personally, let to come and appeal to Liberians to raise an issue against former President Taylor on the basis of the Liberia civil war to which former president is directly connected. Or, is the west concern that others it favors would be dragged into the boiling pot? A similar reason for which they turn a blind eye to the call of Liberians for a war-crimes court. However, we await the ICC to prove it worthiness or significance in the case of former President Taylor, and then we will decide whether it is fit to handle other cases - as the one involving President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudden.