Did Naomi Campbell receive blood diamonds from Charles Taylor in 1997? The prosecution in the war crimes trial of the former Liberian president want to bring in the supermodel to testify and find out
If the prosecution gets its wish, the trial could take the cantankerous Campbell away from her hobbies of throwing phones at underlings, berating cab drivers, and serving as eye candy on the arm of her rich Russian boyfriend, Vladmir Doronin, at celebrity galas.
It was at another of Campbell's star-studded meetings, this time with the feared warlord Taylor at a presidential dinner in South Africa in 1997, that is at the center of the controversy. The leggy model allegedly received uncut diamonds from Taylor's representatives as a gift.
Prosecutors say that Taylor used so-called blood diamonds to purchase arms and control brutal rebel fighters in neighboring Sierra Leone. They maintain that if Taylor gave a gift of diamonds to Campbell, it would help prove their case that Taylor orchestrated the fighting in Sierra Leone, as many international observers allege.