The News Review:

- THE BUTCHER OF MONROVIA Liberian Dictator Taylor Faces Justice for…
- THE BUTCHER OF MONROVIA Liberian Dictator Taylor Faces Justice for…
- Sierra Leone: More Revelations On ‘Blood Diamonds’
- Prosecution says insider to give testimony as Charles Taylor trial…
- Sierra Leone: Information Minister is Bereaved

THE BUTCHER OF MONROVIA Liberian Dictator Taylor Faces Justice for…
Spiegel Online – Jan 4, 2008
In the case of Yugoslavian dictator Milosevic, the prosecutors and judges on the Yugoslavia tribunal managed to circumvent the problem. No one was seriously troubled by the fact that Milosevic was still in office in Belgrade when charges were brought against him. The judges in Sierra Leone, on the other hand, were rewriting international law. The old principle of immunity, they argued, could only apply in cases involving relations among nations. According to the judges in Freetown, a court with international jurisdiction was not bound by such restrictions. The Freetown decision, recognized by international law experts in Germany, is yet another step toward the development of a global legal system that qualifies national sovereignty and, along with it, the high-handedness of national leaders, in favor of valid laws designed to promote peace and protect human rights. The Freetown decision injected “an unprecedented idealism” into international law, says Cologne international criminal law expert Claus Kress.

THE BUTCHER OF MONROVIA Liberian Dictator Taylor Faces Justice for…
Spiegel Online – Jan 4, 2008
What he really means is that he needs justice. General Shareblood, 23, has a fervent wish: that the children playing on his street on the outskirts of Freetown don’t follow in their fathers’ footsteps and become killers…
Taylor got his weapons from Libya and his orders, presumably, from the United States. But Taylor, a charismatic lay preacher, was not interested in American values as much as in gaining control over West Africa’s enormous diamond fields. The most important fields were in neighboring Sierra Leone, which prompted Taylor to devise a plan to take over the country together with his friend Foday Sankoh, whose militias operated across the border. Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) looted the diamond fields and delivered the precious stones to Taylor, who in turn kept the RUF supplied with weapons. To ward off the threat, bands of pro-government units were formed to defend the government in Freetown, but their methods were no less brutal. A lethal spiral of violence soon developed. The RUF’s method of attacking villages was straightforward.

Sierra Leone: More Revelations On ‘Blood Diamonds’
AllAfrica.com – Jan 4, 2008
Energem Resources which has just launched itself on the London stock market as a renewable-energy business is the same firm in which illegally traded diamonds were used to finance civil wars in Africa. GA_googleFillSlot(“AllAfrica_Story_Inset”); The company, with its head office in South Africa and registered office in Canada, used to be known as DiamondWorks. It changed its name in 2004 and gained its London AIM listing last month. Canaccord Adams, the adviser that piloted it onto London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), is headed by Tim Hoare, who sits alongside rock star and champion of Africa Bob Geldof on the board of the television-production company Ten Alps.

Prosecution says insider to give testimony as Charles Taylor trial…
International Herald Tribune – Jan 4, 2008
“We will try in this early phase to lay out in broad strokes the basis of our case, and also the human element,” Rapp said. “We have a strong and compelling case,” he said, but “we expect it to be challenged vigorously” by the defense. The trial by the U. -backed Special Court for Sierra Leone was moved from Freetown to The Hague for fear it could ignite tensions if it were held in the region. Taylor, who has claimed he has no money, was being given about $100,000 a month for his defense, Rapp said, but the tribunal might recover those funds if what he described as Taylor's hidden assets can be found. The court's total budget last year was $36 million.

Sierra Leone: Information Minister is Bereaved
AllAfrica.com – Jan 4, 2008
Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo and family are mourning the death of their son, Osman Ben Kargbo, who until his death was editor of The New Citizen Newspaper. GA_googleFillSlot(“AllAfrica_Story_Inset”); OBK, as he was fondly called, gave up the ghost on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 at the Choitranm Hospital on Hill Station ion Freetown. SLAJ, an association to which both the deceased and his father belonged, yesterday issued a statement expressing regrets at the news of the shocking death of its member.