THE HAGUE/FREETOWN // Begging outside a supermarket in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, Tamba Ngaujah has little doubt who was behind the Revolutionary United Front rebels who, 20 years ago, gave him "short sleeves".
"They put my arms on the sticks, took machetes, and cut them ... They only thing I can tell you about Charles Taylor: I heard from the RUF [rebels] who amputated my hands that they were supported by Charles Taylor," Mr Ngaujah, 46, said.
Tomorrow a special court in The Hague will give its verdict on just what level of responsibility Mr Taylor, the former Liberian president, had in these war atrocities. He denies any responsibility.
In an 11-year conflict which by 2002 left more than 50,000 dead and become a byword for gratuitous violence, "short sleeves" was the macabre tag used to distinguish amputations like Mr Ngaujah's at the elbow from less drastic "long sleeve" cuts at the wrist.
Prosecutors allege Mr Taylor, from his base in Liberia, directed and armed the Sierra Leonean rebels and so bears responsibility on 11 counts including murder, mutilation, rape, enslavement and recruitment of child soldiers.
Whether he is found guilty or not, the verdict will be the first in a court of this kind against a former head of state on serious violations of international law.
"The Sierra Leone conflict was brutal, and Charles Taylor was seen as a big man in the region," said Elise Keppler, a senior counsel at Human Rights Watch.
"Regardless of the verdict, this will send a clear signal that people implicated in the worst crimes will face justice no matter how important or powerful they are," she said.
Since Mr Taylor's indictment in 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone - a so-called "hybrid" court staffed by both international and Sierra Leonean personnel - has produced testimony ranging from the horrific to the titillating.
As prosecutors sought to link Mr Taylor to the locally mined "blood diamonds" which helped fuel the war, the court heard the bafflement of the supermodel Naomi Campbell at the uncut diamonds - or "dirty little pebbles" in her words - delivered during the night to her hotel room after a 1997 charity dinner with Mr Taylor.
It also featured victims of amputation who displayed remains of mutilated limbs, and graphic accounts of massacres, torture and cannibalism as the prosecution called 91 witnesses whose accounts are included in almost 50,000 pages of transcripts.
Typical is the description by one such witness of the mutilation and execution of his brother by rebels.
"They cut off all his 10 fingers," Patrick Sheriff said. "They put them in (a) cup, then they shot him."
Another witness described fighters betting on the sex of a pregnant woman's child. According to the prosecution: "The rebels shot the woman dead, opened her belly, took out the baby ... The baby cried and then died."
For prosecutors, the challenge is to show a link between Mr Taylor and such crimes. Much depends on the evidence of seven radio operators who allegedly kept him in touch with rebel groups. Mr Taylor does not deny atrocities, but does deny any role.
Sareta Ashraph, a former Special Court of Sierra Leone lawyer, says even if a link between Mr Taylor and RUF rebels is demonstrated, it would be harder to show he had a clear planning or command role in the late-1990s period covered by the court.
"It difficult to see the motivation for putting himself in charge of the RUF," said Mr Ashraph.
"He was already president of Liberia, was making money off them and would have realised the best the RUF were going to do is force the government into a stalemate."
The rebels and government signed a 1999 peace deal but fighting continued for nearly three years until the RUF was defeated with military help from Britain and UN forces.
While Mr Taylor, 64, was deemed enough of a menace to West Africa's stability that his trial was moved to The Hague after his March 2006 arrest during exile in Nigeria, his present-day influence is harder to define.
The region is still plagued by mercenaries like those who created havoc two decades ago. But militant Islamists such as Nigeria's Boko Haram or Al Qaeda agents in the Sahel zone are now the bigger threat, alongside the growing narcotics trade.
Nonetheless, acquittal for Mr Taylor would be an uncomfortable prospect for the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who became his arch-enemy after withdrawing support for him early in the Liberian civil war of the 1990s that brought him to power.
Yet while he is abhorred by many of Liberians, Mr Taylor remains a local hero and symbol of national pride for some.
"The best president I have seen in my time is Charles Ghankay Taylor. He is better than Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf," Karhn Dayplay, 40, a farmer, said.
"Taylor must come back here to rule this nation. We are waiting for him," said Mr Dayplay, a resident of Karnplay, one of the Nimba County towns from which Mr Taylor launched his 1989 rebellion to unseat the then president Samuel Doe.
A man used to giving orders, Mr Taylor has wanted to be closely involved in shaping his defence, taking the witness box for seven months with confident, forthright performances.
As he awaits the verdict, he has immersed himself in study of the Jewish faith to which he converted before arriving in The Hague. He has regular visits from a rabbi and does not receive his lawyers on the Sabbath.
His library - now put in storage - had occupied an entire room at the seaside detention facilities used by the tribunal and the International Criminal Court, where he is said to maintain cordial relations with old enemy Laurent Gbagbo, the former Ivory Coast leader transferred there last year to face charges of crimes against humanity.
His defence team reports that he is reading Strategic Vision, the latest book by a former US national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and that Mr Taylor followed last year's upheavals in North Africa with avid interest.
He has benefited from the company of other African detainees including Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo to go through legal briefs and cook home favourites together - one domestic option he may lack in the British maximum security prison due to house him if found guilty.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The specs
Engine: 1.4-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 180hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 250Nm at 3,00rpm
Transmission: 5-speed sequential auto
Price: From Dh139,995
On sale: now
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.6-litre V6
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 285bhp
Torque: 353Nm
Price: TBA
On sale: Q2, 2020
MATCH INFO
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Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Conservative MPs who have publicly revealed sending letters of no confidence
- Steve Baker
- Peter Bone
- Ben Bradley
- Andrew Bridgen
- Maria Caulfield
- Simon Clarke
- Philip Davies
- Nadine Dorries
- James Duddridge
- Mark Francois
- Chris Green
- Adam Holloway
- Andrea Jenkyns
- Anne-Marie Morris
- Sheryll Murray
- Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Laurence Robertson
- Lee Rowley
- Henry Smith
- Martin Vickers
- John Whittingdale
