Campbell told the court she gave the stones to Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the fund

READ MORE...

THE Hague - Supermodel Naomi Campbell told a court how she received a pouch of rough diamonds as a late-night gift she assumed came from former Liberian president Charles Taylor, now in the dock for war crimes.

Campbell, 40, said she was woken by a knock on her bedroom door at a guesthouse after meeting Taylor at a celebrity dinner hosted by then president Nelson Mandela in September 1997, and handed a pouch she only opened the next morning.

'I saw a few stones in there. Very small, dirty-looking stones ... maybe three, two or three,' Campbell said of the gift delivered by two men she did not know.

At breakfast the next morning, she told her then agent Carole White and actress Mia Farrow about the gift, both of whom assumed the stones were diamonds.

'One of the two said 'that is obviously Charles Taylor', and I said 'yes I guess it was',' she told the court, adding she never saw Taylor again and did not confront him about the gift she claims she gave to a charity.

Taylor, 62, is standing trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity 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' in return for arming rebels. Prosecutors had subpoenaed Campbell in a bid to cast doubt on Taylor's credibility and to try to disprove his claim he never possessed rough diamonds.

Meanwhile, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund has denied ever receiving the diamonds from the supermodel.

Campbell had told the court she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the fund, intending to use them for charity.