Naomi Campbell tells judge: 'This is a big inconvenience for me'

Naomi Campbell testifying at the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Photograph: Reuters Tv/REUTERS

There were several minutes this morning, after the prosecutor had trumpeted her arrival, when it seemed entirely possible that Naomi Campbell had failed to show up for her most eagerly awaited show in years.
The hands of the clock crept forward, and the judge looked menacingly at the empty witness seat opposite. Lawyers shuffled their papers; the former Liberian president Charles Taylor realigned the array of multi-coloured ballpoint pens he had brought with him.
But, like any celebrity worth her salt, Campbell was simply biding her time.
At a little after 9am, with a lateness some might describe as fashionable, the supermodel from Streatham trotted into Tribunal Chamber II, and swore on the Bible. A vision of chic in cream cardigan and tight-fitting dress, she wore an "evil eye" pendant around her neck. True to fashion, she had no qualms about reminding the judge of her status: "I want to get this over and done with … this is a big inconvenience for me."
Ordered by the prosecution of the special court of Sierra Leone to give evidence in connection with allegations that Taylor had engaged in the illicit trade of blood diamonds, Campbell had previously made no secret of her reluctance to testify about claims that she had received such a gem from him in 1997. Even some tough questioning on Oprah Winfrey's TV sofa had gone unanswered.
But today was different. This wasn't the set of a chatshow but the drab Dutch court in which Taylor is facing 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his allegedly murderous activities during Sierra Leone's bloody civil war. Even for Campbell – who said she had had no idea who Taylor was when she met him 13 years ago, and told the court repeatedly that she had "never heard of" Liberia before then – this appeared to count for something.
Yes, she said, she had spent an evening at Nelson Mandela's house in September 1997. Yes, she had dined with Liberia's newly elected president, along with the actor Mia Farrow and Carole White, her former agent. And yes, she said – to the raised eyebrows of the journalists in the public gallery above and the impassive stare of Taylor – she had been awoken that night by men who presented her with "a pouch", and announced: "A gift for you."
"I saw a few stones in there. They were very small, dirty looking stones," she recalled, scarcely masking her contempt. The press corps giggled. But the implication of her testimony, said the prosecution, was deeply serious.
The prosecution argues that if the men were sent by Taylor, it would disprove his claims that he had nothing to do with the diamond business. The "dirty pebbles" could yet, it is alleged, become a smoking gun.
Speaking in her distinctive blend of south London vowels and Manhattan drawl, Campbell, 40, was keen to distance herself from Taylor's past. Had she conversed with him over the feast, wondered chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis. "Not pacifically [sic]," she replied. Had she given him her telephone number, asked a brave defence lawyer. "No I did not." She had subsequently read up on Taylor on the internet, she said, and discovered he had "supposedly killed thousands of people".
Hollis, who, with her grey hair and unflappable manner was the unashamed counterpoint to Campbell's perfect pout, was keen to know why it was that the witness had not asked her midnight visitors where the gems came from. Hollis, however, who has spent two years questioning former rebels, government soldiers and diamond dealers, had clearly fallen short in her knowledge of international supermodels.
"I was exhausted," Campbell explained patiently. Before arriving at Mandela's she had hopped between New York, London and Milan. And anyway, while for most people the present of several diamonds would be sufficiently unusual to merit investigation, for Campbell it was nothing special. "It is not abnormal for me to get gifts," she said. "I get gifts all the time. Sometimes in the middle of the night, without knowing who they are from." By this time, the mood in the court was somewhere between horror and hilarity.
Those who expected the famously short-tempered diva to explode under the questioning were disappointed. Only once, when asked about her reasons for not wanting to attend, did she betray her frustration: "I didn't really want to be here. I was made to be here," she snapped. Ever aware of this fact, and wary, perhaps, of the shortness of the Campbell fuse, the court obligingly released its star witness after no more than 90 minutes of testimony.
"We want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule," said the chief judge. And, with that, she was gone. The press gallery emptied, and Taylor put down his pens.