Naomi Campbell, the model, told a war crimes tribunal Thursday that she gave alleged "blood diamonds" to the head of Nelson Mandela's children's charity.
Giving evidence at The Hague, she admitted that she passed on a few "dirty-looking pebbles", handed to her after a fund-raising dinner hosted by Mr Mandela, to Jeremy Ractliffe, the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.
The stones were believed to have been a gift from Charles Taylor, the former Liberian dictator who is accused of backing a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone in which thousands were mutilated and 120,000 people died.
Prosecutors claim that the stones were blood diamonds - illegally mined gems used to raise money for arms.
Miss Campbell, who is so close to Mr Mandela that she refers to him as her "honorary grandfather", claimed that she gave the uncut diamonds to Mr Ractliffe "to do something good".
The admission drags Mr Mandela, one of the world's most revered statesmen, into allegations surrounding the funding of the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone war, which was characterised by the use of boy soldiers and the mutilation of 20,000 people who lost arms, legs, lips and ears in machete attacks.
Taylor, 62, is being tried on 11 counts of committing war crimes in Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia, including charges of murder, rape and sexual slavery.
Central to the prosecution case is the allegation that Taylor had given Miss Campbell some of these diamonds as a gift after they met at the banquet hosted by Mr Mandela on Sept 25, 1997.
The model told the tribunal that, after the function in Pretoria, two men had knocked on her bedroom door late at night.
"They said 'a gift for you' and then gave me a pouch. I took it, said thank you and closed the door. There was no explanation, no note."
Explaining that she was unconcerned because she frequently received gifts from admirers, she said she put the gift "close to my bed and went back to sleep".
"I opened the pouch the next morning when I woke up. I saw a few stones. They were very, small, dirty looking stones," she said.
The model insisted that the idea that the mysterious present had come from Mr Taylor was only suggested at breakfast the following day by Mia Farrow, the actress, and Carole White, her former agent, who had both attended the dinner.
"One of them said 'that is obviously Charles Taylor' and I said 'I guess that is right'," she said.
Miss Campbell said that she gave the stones to Mr Ractliffe the following day. She claimed that after that she had forgotten about the incident until she was contacted last year by the tribunal. Initially she refused to attend and gave evidence against her will, after being threatened with a seven-year prison sentence.
She said that last year she had phoned Mr Ractliffe and was surprised to hear that he still had the stones.
A spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, set up by the former South African president in 1995, said yesterday that Campbell's evidence was "of great concern".
Opua Ngwenya said: "We don't have any record of the diamonds. Mr Ractliffe is among our trustees so he would have indicated if such a thing existed. We have it on record, we have made a statement to say there's no such record 1/8of diamonds 3/8."
Mr Ractliffe refused to comment on Campbell's claims, telling The Daily Telegraph: "The matter is sub judice so I am not saying anything."
Asked about the fund's statement that it never received the diamonds or money from their sale, he replied: "The fund is correct."
Asked whether he himself had received diamonds from Miss Campbell or if he still had them, he hung up.
A source close to Mr Mandela said he had never shied away from meeting controversial characters in the hope of positively influencing them.
Read more:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Nao...#ixzz0vmnN70bT 
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
