At last, Charles Taylor gets his day in court. He took the stand before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) for the first time on 14 July to testify in his own defence. His trial is taking place in The Hague, Netherlands, rather than in Sierra Leone, for security reasons. Taylor, President of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, is likely to be in the witness box for several weeks. His lead counsel, Courtenay Griffiths, QC, is one of Britain's most experienced criminal defence lawyers, having taken on several murder and terrorism cases. Taylor claims, among other grievances, that he is a victim of Western racism.
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