The British beauty took the witness box at The Hague in the Netherlands on Thursday (05Aug10) to face claims she accepted blood diamonds – a term for jewels sold to finance conflicts – as a gift from Taylor after a dinner party in South Africa hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997.
Campbell admitted she had been awoken in the night by men at her door, who then handed her a bag of “dirty-looking stones” but she was adamant she didn’t know who had sent the gift.
She claimed it was not until breakfast the next morning that her then agent Carole White and Farrow told her they were probably sent by Taylor.
But in her testimony at The Hague on Monday (09Aug10), Farrow insisted it was Campbell who suggested the gems were from the Liberian leader, alleging the model was “quite excited” about the receiving the present.
The Rosemary’s Baby star told the court: “The group that had assembled for the blue train festivities arrived at that dinner – Naomi Campbell, Quincy Jones and his partner, Imran Khan and his then wife Jemima Khan… I was seated with my children and I was seated and next to Imran Khan and Jemima Khan and I don’t remember further than that.
“We slept at the presidential guest house. I think we all were (staying there). I believe so, all those that I named. My children stayed there with me.
“(The next morning) I remember that the children and I were having breakfast and it was at a long table and I was at the table, I think with Quincy Jones, and what I remember is Naomi Campbell joined us at the table but before she even sat down she recounted an event of that evening and she said that in the night she had been awakened, some men had knocked at the door and they had been sent by Charles Taylor and they had given her a huge diamond and she intended to give the diamond to Nelson Mandela’s children’s charities.”
When quizzed if she ever saw the diamond herself, Farrow replied, “No, she did not (show me).”
Farrow also told the hearing that Nelson Mandela’s partner, Graca Machel, had warned her not to be photographed with Taylor, as he should not have been at the event.
She added, “I was met by Mrs Graca Machel and I was very punctual but there was already people there – men. And I remember this, they (the men) moved towards the children and me, and Mrs Machel said, ‘No, you dont want to be photographed with this man, this is the president of Liberia. He’s not supposed to be here, or he should have left by now’, something to that effect, and she moved the children and me to another area.”
Taylor is accused of using blood diamonds to fund Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 civil war. He has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges.
