Campbell knew diamonds came from Taylor, says Mia Farrow

Naomi Campbell named Charles Taylor as the person who sent a "huge diamond" to the supermodel's room in 1997, according to US actress Mia Farrow in her testimony at Taylor's war crimes trial on Monday. The former Liberian president and warlord is accused of trading in so-called blood diamonds to fund civil war in Sierra Leone.

Reuters

"She said that in the night she had been awakened. Some men were knocking at her door. They were sent by Charles Taylor and they had given her a huge diamond," Farrow told the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague.

Farrow never saw the stones herself, she says, but heard Campbell discussing them at breakfast the following day.

"Naomi Campbell said they came from Charles Taylor... It was sort of an unforgettable moment ... when she came to the breakfast table and said she had received a diamond from Charles Taylor."

Testifying before the court last week, Campbell denied knowing that the gift came from Taylor. She claims Farrow herself suggested that he was the sender.

Both Farrow and Campbell's former agent Carole White, who were also present at the charity event hosted by Nelson Mandela at which the diamonds changed hands, have contradicted the model's version of events.

White alleges that Campbell and Taylor sat next to each other during the banquet and were even "mildly flirtatious", prompting Taylor to promise his fellow dinner guest a gift of diamonds.

White is due to appear in court after Farrow's testimony.

Taylor is on trial for his alleged role in the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone, in which some 120,000 people died.

Prosecutors are attempting to prove that Taylor was in possession of illegally mined stones in 1997, and that he used them to fund Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who murdered, raped and mutilated civilians and conscripted thousands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

He denies the charges.