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Naomi Campbell looks flustered as she’s ordered to appear at African despot’s war crimes tribunal over Â«blood diamond giftÂ»

02 July 2010 20:33 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Naomi Campbell has been officially ordered by subpoena to testify at the international war crimes tribunal, APA reports quoting dailymail.co.uk web-page.
She has repeatedly refused to attend the case against former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is alleged to have given her a ’blood diamond’ in South Africa.
The incident was said to have occurred at a celebrity-packed event hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997.
Prosecutors will claim that Taylor lied when he said he never possessed rough diamonds.
Taylor is charged with supporting rebels in Sierra Leone’s civil war in exchange for diamonds and other natural wealth.
He is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The order published on Thursday follows an earlier ruling this week allowing prosecutors to reopen their case and call new witnesses.
Campbell, who went to Cipriani’s restaurant in London last night with her Russian boyfriend Vladimir Doronin and was seen leaving a hotel today in a car, is guaranteed to liven up the first trial of a former African head of state by an international tribunal.
Prosecutors complained to the judges that they had tried unsuccessfully to contact Campbell several times since June 2009, when they received information that Taylor had given her the diamond.
’The prosecution has shown that there is at least a good chance that the information to be provided by Ms Campbell would be of material assistance to its case,’ said the ruling.

It cited Campbell’s public statements that she ’does not want to be involved in the case’.
It did not say when she would be required to appear, but it would not be until the defence finishes calling its witnesses, probably next month.
Taylor is accused of supporting rebels in Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 civil war, which claimed an estimated 500,000 victims of killings, systematic mutilation or other atrocities, with some of the worst crimes committed by child soldiers who were drugged to desensitise them.
His trial is being held in The Hague for fear of renewed violence if hearings were conducted in Sierra Leone.
After several false starts, it began in earnest in January 2008. Taylor’s own testimony took seven months.
Campbell’s alleged receipt of a ’blood diamond’ first surfaced after actress Mia Farrow - who had also been a guest of Mandela at the time - told prosecutors she heard Campbell describe a ’huge diamond’ she had received from Taylor.
’You don’t forget when a girlfriend tells you she was given a huge diamond in the middle of the night,’ Farrow insisted

Defence attorneys objected to the request to summon Campbell, arguing that the prosecution had concluded its case 18 months ago and that Campbell’s story is irrelevant since she cannot testify to any connection between the diamond and Taylor’s alleged involvement with Sierra Leone rebels.
The court ruled earlier this week, however, that the prosecution could summon Cambell, Farrow and also the supermodel’s former agent, Carole White.
Campbell’s lawyer, Gideon Benaim, has told the court he would accept a subpoena, if served, according to the ruling.
Farrow already has given a written statement to the court that Campbell told her about the gift, but the judges refused to accept the statement when the prosecution tried to introduce it as evidence last January.
Under cross-examination, Taylor said the story was ’totally incorrect’.