Naomi Campbell admits handling 'blood diamonds'

Hope she gets charged as well

With handling the stuff.

But she wont.

Location, location

The Sierra Leone tribunal is not in The Hague, it is in Leidschendam (which admittedly is next to The Hague). Interestingly it is setup in the former headquarters of the Dutch secret service (AIVD).

Amazingly...

They were saying on Radio4 news this morning that there were something in excess of 200 journos who applied to report from the courtroom this morning (the court has about 30 seats.)

Guess how many journos apply to report this war crimes tiral on a daily basis. That's right, not a single one.

Ms Campbell is a model, one who apparantly accepts uncut diamonds from unknown people and doesn't bother to ask questions. I mean, if someone gave me a small pouch of uncut diamonds, I'm pretty sure I'd ask questions. I'm just pissed off that something as important as a war crimes tiral only gets reported because of a celbrity link.

NB: I'm not having a go at el Reg here, as they have a 'thing' for reporting Ms Campbell, but I dispare at mainstream news.

Blood oil?

"Blood diamonds" is a marketing campaign by De Beers in S. Africa to stop people buying the competition. The same De Beers that cared so much about poor Africans it had nothing to do with the previous S. African regime.

Perhaps BP could start a similar campaign against middle easter oil?

Persuading people to only buy 'freedom oil' from the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea?

What a party

Has anyone ever wondered who drew up the guest list?

'So we've got Mia Farrow - Nelson always liked 'Hannah and Her Sisters', Naomi will add a bit of glamour - so all we need now is a war criminal - is Charles free?'

Factual inaccuracy

She didn't admit they were given to her by henchman of Charles Taylor. Register, you have incorrectly reported the proceedings in Court this morning.

What she actually has said that the guys giving her the diamonds didn't say who they were, who they were representing and didn't state who the gift was from.

She's trying to make out that she didn't engage in any one-on-one conversation with Taylor, except for group conversation at the dinner table. She's then trying to claim someone's given her a gift in the middle of the night when she was asleep, without disclosing who they are.

It's a little bizarre.

This part of the case hinges on whether it can be established, proven that the diamonds came from Taylor, and thereby prove some of Taylors earlier testimony in relation to not handling diamonds is untrue, and would prove that he was using diamonds other than for his own personal use at about the time of the war.

Personally, I think it inconceivable that somebody would give a gift in the middle of the night,wake someone up and for that person not to reveal who's giving the gift..you'd want the recipient to know the gift came from you!

Campbell is trying to make out she had no after diner contact of any kind with Taylor, whilst one of the other witnesses has claimed that Campbell was flirting with Taylor and that witness overheard Taylor saying to her that he was going to give her a diamond(s).

I think in reality what happened is the two henchman most likely said "this is a gift for you from Mr. Taylor", which is what other witnesses are claiming Cambell said happened the next morning.

Campbell doesn't want to get involved this case and is worried for the safety of herself and her family and so is conveniently denying all knowledge of where these diamonds came from.

It's simply her word against the other two witnesses, and as it was 13 years ago, no one can prove beyond doubt what really happened, so Cambell can lie through her teeth about the fine detail and get away with it.