Charles Taylor
THE HAGUE (AFP) — A former comrade-in-arms of Charles Taylor on Wednesday told judges at the Liberian ex-president’s war crimes trial that Taylor ordered him to take arms to Sierra Leone rebels and exchange them for diamonds.
Joseph Marzah, also know by his nom-de-guerre Zigzag, told the court that in the early 1990s he went to Sierra Leone some 40 times with transports carrying AK-47 assault rifles and and rockets.
“Sometimes, we got ammunition from White Flower (Taylor’s presidential residence) or a Russian plane… By Charles Taylor’s directive, I sometimes would take some straight to Sierra Leone,” Marzah, 49, said.
According to the prosecution of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Taylor controlled rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) forces who went on a rampage of killing, mutilation and rape funded by “blood diamonds”during the 1991-2001 civil war.
Around 120,000 people were killed in the conflict, with rebels mutilating thousands more, cutting off arms, legs, ears or noses.
At the time of the charges in the indictment Marzah was a fighter in Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
Asked by prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian if he ever saw diamonds, Marzah was firm.
“Many times. I escorted diamonds to Charles Taylor. He himself can tell you that if he tells the truth,” he said.
He told the court he had personally escorted some 10 to 15 trips where diamonds were taken to Taylor.
He recalled one diamond in particular which was around five centimetres (two inches) in diameter.
“At that time, we called (it) father’. When he took it along, Charles Taylor was impressed,” Marzah said.
Taylor, the first former African head of state to appear before an international tribunal, faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.Source: AFP
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Witness describes terror tactics by Charles Taylor’s forces during civil wars
The Associated Press
Published: March 12, 2008
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: Charles Taylor celebrated his rise to power in Liberia with a ceremony involving a human sacrifice, burying a pregnant woman alive in sand, one of his former military commanders testified Wednesday.
Joseph “Zigzag” Marzah described the ceremony and acknowledged committing hundreds of other murders with his own hands under Taylor’s orders, during a day of grim testimony at Taylor’s war crimes trial in The Hague.
“We executed everybody — babies, women, old men. There were so many executions. I can’t remember them all,” Marzah told the court.
Among the victims were Taylor’s opponents and former allies who he thought had betrayed him, Marzah said. One was a guerrilla commander known as Superman who Taylor ordered executed and his severed hand brought to him as proof of his death.
The killers ceremonially ate Superman’s heart, and afterwards were given US$200 each which they were told came from Taylor for “cigarette money.”
Taylor often leaned forward with a scowl on his face as he listened to Marzah’s testify for more than five hours.
Asked under cross-examination if he had any “pangs of conscience,” Marzah replied “yes,” but said he had no difficulty carrying out his orders. “I was a servant to my chief, Charles Taylor,” he said.
He was adamant that Taylor had specifically ordered him to chop off hands, and paid a monetary reward for the killing of babies. He recalled receiving an order from Taylor to cut open a woman close to giving birth because the unborn child “is an enemy.”
Under prompting from defense counsel Courtenay Griffith, Marzah said, “It’s not difficult to kill a baby. Sometimes you just knock them on the head, sometimes you thrown them in a pit, sometimes you throw them in the river and they are dead. Then you give the report to Charles Taylor.”
Prosecutors described Marzah as one of their key witnesses, testifying with inside knowledge of the former Liberian president’s operations in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone, where he is accused of responsibility for the widespread murder, rape and amputations committed by soldiers loyal to him.
The first former African head of state to face an international tribunal, Taylor, 59, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is being tried by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone,
His trial began last year but was halted for six months after a chaotic first day on which he fired his legal team. The case resumed in January, when prosecutors began to call the first of dozens of witnesses expected to testify.
Describing the ceremony on the beach behind White Flower, Taylor’s executive mansion in Monrovia, Marzah said a woman was placed standing up in a pit between two oil drums, then covered over with sand. Then a white sheep was killed on the spot.
“It was a sacrifice,” Marzah said. Taylor “was the first person to put sand in his hand and put it in the hole.”
Marzah said the event happened in 1995, although Taylor did not come to power until he won an election in 1997. At other times, Marzah repeatedly became frustrated and angry when questioned too closely about the timing of events, saying he had been with Taylor “from beginning to end,” and had done too much to recall the dates of each event.
Marzah said Taylor encouraged his fighters to “play with human blood” to create fear among his enemies. He described militia checkpoints meant to terrify the population.
After setting up roadblocks, “we used human intestines. We put heads on sticks for people to be afraid. When the person is executed, the stomach is split and you use the intestine as a rope.” Sometimes the soldiers tied two together to stretch as much as 10 meters (30 feet) across the road, he told the court.
Marzah said he saw Taylor pass through such checkpoints at least eight times.
Marzah, who described himself as Taylor’s chief of operations and commander of the Death Squad, which specialized in executions, said forces of Taylor’s National Patriotic Liberian Front were told on several occasions to show no mercy to civilians.
“He made us understand that you have to play with human blood so enemy forces would be afraid of you,” he said.
Marzah said he smuggled both arms and diamonds for Taylor. He drew a sketch of one stone the size of a passport and partly shaped like a head.
Weapons were flown in to Sierra Leone on what he described as a Russian cargo plane brought by a “white guy with a big stomach” who was a friend of Taylor’s. He did not mention the man’s name.
He described intercepting a four-vehicle convoy that was believed to be carrying Liberia’s then-President Samuel Doe, but Doe was not there. The commander of the group called Taylor for instructions. Taylor “said to execute them with knives,” Marzah testified. “There were about 72 of them, and we executed them with knives the same day.”
A rebel loyal to the warlord Charles Taylor poses next to the painted skull of a Krahn ethnic soldier of President Samuel Doe in Monrovia, May 15, 1990. (Photo: Pascal Guyot / AFP-Getty Images)
Doe was killed in Monrovia in September 1990, which Marzah said was shortly after the abortive ambush.
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Terror Tactics Described at Taylor Trial
By ARTHUR MAX
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — During West Africa’s civil wars, Charles Taylor encouraged his fighters to “play with human blood” to create fear among his enemies, a former militia commander testified Wednesday at Taylor’s war crimes trial.
Joseph Marzah described militia checkpoints meant to terrify the population, with human heads mounted on sticks and human intestines used as rope to barricade roads.
He said Taylor ordered him to kill civilians, telling him after one march into Bong County in Liberia that anyone there must be collaborating with the enemy.
“We executed everybody — babies, women, old men. There were so many executions. I can’t remember them all,” Marzah told the court.
Prosecutors described Marzah as one of their key witnesses, testifying with inside knowledge of the former Liberian president’s operations in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone, where he is accused of responsibility for the widespread murder, rape and amputations committed by soldiers loyal to him.
Taylor, 59, is accused of trading so-called “blood diamonds” mined in Sierra Leone and smuggled through Liberia to finance the civil war, and of orchestrating the violence from his presidential palace in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.
The first former African head of state to face an international tribunal, Taylor has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is being tried by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has been hearing the case in The Hague, Netherlands.
His trial began last year but was halted for six months after a chaotic first day on which he fired his legal team. The case resumed in January, when prosecutors began call the first of dozens of witnesses expected to testify.
Marzah, who described himself as Taylor’s chief of operations and commander of the Death Squad that specialized in executions, said he smuggled both arms and diamonds for Taylor.
Weapons were flown in to Sierra Leone on what he described as a Russian cargo plane brought by a “white guy with a big stomach” who was a friend of Taylor’s. He did not mention the man’s name.
Marzah said forces of Taylor’s National Patriotic Liberian Front were told on several occasions to show no mercy to civilians.
“He made us understand that you have to play with human blood so enemy forces would be afraid of you,” Marzah said.
At times Marzah became frustrated and angry when questioned too closely about the timing of events, saying he had been with Taylor “from beginning to end,” and had done too much to recall the dates of each event.
Marzah said he was instructed to assassinate a militia leader, Issa Sesay, because he was about to sign a peace agreement, but Sesay evaded Marzah’s ambush.
He described intercepting a four-vehicle convoy that was believed to be carrying Liberia’s then-President Samuel Doe, but Doe was not there. The commander of the group called Taylor for instructions.
Taylor “said to execute them with knives,” Marzah testified. “There were about 72 of them, and we executed them with knives the same day.”
Doe was killed in September 1990, which Marzah said was shortly after the abortive ambush.
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