Communicating Justice

The Hague, Netherlands, 14th January 2008 - As the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor continues in The Hague, prosecution witnesses have been outlining his alleged role in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Varmuyan Sherif, a former deputy director of Taylor’s Special Security Service (SSS), was the third prosecution witness and the first “insider” to testify on alleged links between Taylor and Sierra Leone’s RUF rebels, who became notorious for hacking off the limbs of civilians. Sherif testified from January 9 to 14.

Guerillas loyal to Charles Taylor, Liberia. 
May 1995. Photo: © BBC Picture Archives.

Taylor is accused of backing the RUF in return for diamonds. He is on trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone on eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, to which he has pleaded not-guilty. The trial was moved out of the West African region to The Hague, because of security concerns.

Sherif, who waived his right to have his identity protected, told the court that he took directives from Taylor to supply arms and ammunition to the RUF. He said Taylor had used him as a go-between with Sam Bockarie (“Mosquito”), who became RUF leader in Sierra Leone after the arrest of his boss, the late Corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh.
 
“Mr. Taylor sent me to fetch Mosquito, when he became the RUF leader in Sierra Leone after the arrest of Foday Sankoh,” said the witness. He described how he had successfully carried out the assignment, which he said saw Mosquito returning to the Sierra Leonean border town of Bomaru with money and a satellite phone he had received from Taylor.
 
Sherif told the court he had seen a mayonnaise bottle full of diamonds in Mosquito’s shirt on their way to Monrovia . “We had a break in Voinjama [in Liberia] when Mosquito requested having a bath and a hair cut,” he said. “ I took him to our family house where I saw the diamonds in the shirt he took off to wash.”     
  
The relationship between Taylor and the RUF became cordial from that time, the witness said. He told the court that more arms were later taken from Liberia to Mosquito in Sierra Leone, which were used by the RUF to fight the war. The witness described Charles Taylor’s house in Monrovia as “the ammunition base” for the wars in both Sierra Leone and Liberia.
 
Sherif described the former Liberian leader as the “RUF Godfather”, saying he played a mediation role between the RUF leadership. “Taylor invited Issa Sesay and Mosquito to Monrovia when they had their RUF leadership dispute,” the witness said. “Mr. Taylor supervised the meeting and later advised Mosquito to quit the leadership and requested Issa Sesay to become the RUF leader.”
 
According to Sherif, Mosquito and his 350 fighters from Sierra Leone were later flown to Monrovia under Taylor’s directives for a permanent location there. 
 
Defence lawyer Courtenay Griffiths challenged Sherif’s testimony, accusing him of inconsistency and “selling a false story against Taylor to the Special Court prosecution because he was broke”.

Griffiths contended that the witness was not close to Taylor as he claimed, and that his  testimony in court was unconnected with that of his initial statement to the prosecution. He further sought to undermine Sherif’s credibility by suggesting that the witness had suffered from mental illness during his time at the SSS.

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