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Naomi Campbell to appear in war crimes trial

As a witness, we hasten to add

Supermodel Naomi Campbell will be summonsed to a war crimes trial in The Hague, the Telegraph reports.

Mercifully for fans of the battling Streatham clotheshorse, she is not accused of committing terrible atrocities on unarmed civilians with a PDA, but rather will appear as a witness in the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

Taylor is in the dock for his alleged involvement in Sierra Leone's civil war, accused of "arming rebels in return for diamonds illegally mined by kidnapped civilians, many of them children". He's pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

One of Taylor's "blood diamonds" allegedly ended up in Ms Campbell's possession, when his "henchmen" handed her a "huge" uncut sparkler at a 1997 charity bash at Nelson Mandela's house.

That's according to Mia Farrow, who was at the event and says Campbell "told her she had been given the gift". Campbell denies this.

Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone declared yesterday that Saarf London's finest will be requested to explain the matter in person. The court's four-judge panel announced: "The Trial Chamber, having perused the declaration of Mia Farrow, is satisfied that the proposed fresh evidence is highly probative and material to the Indictment.

"The Trial Chamber directs the Prosecution to call the proposed additional witnesses as soon as practicable." ®

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