Naomi got huge gem from Taylor
NAOMI Campbell accepted a late-night gift of diamonds Charles Taylor had promised her over dinner and boasted about it the next day, actress Mia Farrow and the supermodel's ex-agent told judges on Monday.
Farrow and Campbell's then agent, Carole White, both contradicted the model's own evidence to the Liberian ex-president's war crimes trial that she did not know who sent the parcel of gems.
White said Campbell and Taylor had flirted throughout a charity dinner hosted by South Africa's then president Nelson Mandela in September 1997.
'She told me: 'he is going to give me some diamonds'. She was very excited.'
After dinner, Campbell discussed with Taylor and two other men 'how to get the diamonds to Naomi', and two men arrived later that night at the presidential guesthouse, White said.
'They took out a quite scruffy paper and handed it to Ms Campbell and said: 'These are the diamonds'. She showed it to me. She was quite disappointed because they were not shiny.' There were about six rough stones.
Taylor, 62, is on trial for his alleged role in the 1991-2001 Sierra Leone civil war that claimed some 120000 lives.
He is accused of receiving illegally mined 'blood diamonds' for arming rebels who murdered, raped and maimed civilians, amputating their limbs and carving initials on their bodies.
Farrow said Campbell had named Taylor as sending her a 'huge diamond'.
Jeremy Ratcliffe, a former director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, has since confirmed that Campbell gave him stones that have been confirmed to be rough diamonds.