Naomi Campbell strikes out at camera crew when quizzed over ‘blood diamond’

Posted by mija on Apr 24, 2010 in News | 0 comments

Supermodel Naomi Campbell lost her cool and angrily knocked away a camera after being quizzed over allegations she was given a ‘blood diamond’ by the deposed African despot Charles Taylor.
‘I didn’t receive a diamond and I’m not going to speak about that,’ Campbell told reporters before walking out of an interview and punching the camera in a producer’s hand.
Prosecutors in the Hague for the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone say Campbell has refused their requests to be interviewed about the allegations.
Nor would Campbell answer questions from ABC about her alleged refusal to co-operate with the international criminal tribunal. Her London-based lawyer also declined to comment.
Campbell’s alleged receipt of a ‘blood diamond’ first surfaced after actress Mia Farrow told prosecutors she heard Campbell describe a ‘huge diamond’ she had received from Taylor.
‘You don’t forget when a girlfriend tells you she was given a huge diamond in the middle of the night,’ Farrow insisted.
Farrow said she and Campbell were both guests at the home of South African president Nelson Mandela while Taylor was also visiting.
In documents presented to the court, she said Campbell described in detail a visit in the middle of the night from two of Taylor’s men.
‘She said during the night, some men had knocked at her door and she, half asleep, had opened the door and it was representatives of President Charles Taylor and that they had given her a huge diamond,’ Farrow told ABC News.
‘We were like, “Oh my gosh”.’
Under cross examination at the trial, Taylor repeatedly denied he had a large quantity of diamonds or that he sent one to Naomi Campbell.
‘Total nonsense,’ Taylor testified when asked if ‘that diamond that you sent Naomi Campbell was one of the diamonds that you had been given by the junta in Sierra Leone’.
Despite Campbell’s refusal to help prosecutors, and her denial to ABC News that she received a diamond from Taylor, actress Farrow says ‘there’s no doubt in my mind’ of what happened.
‘All I thought was gosh, what an amazing life Naomi Campbell has,’ she said.
‘Probably lots of men are always giving her diamonds and she said she was going to give it to Nelson Mandela’s children’s charity and I thought no more about it.’
Campbell is notorious for her temper. On previous occasions she has hurled a mobile phone at a member of staff and taken off a plane after screaming at flight attendants and abusing police.
The Taylor trial has been under way for almost three years in the Hague.
Witnesses have included former Taylor deputies and some 50 victims of the terror campaign from Sierra Leone.
Taylor has strongly denied the prosecution’s accusations that he ‘orchestrated’ the atrocities in Sierra Leone.
‘I resent that characterisation of me,’ he testified. ‘It is false, it is malicious.’
Taylor stands accused of masterminding one of the most macabre, blood-spattered episodes in African history.
Helped by his teenage son ‘Chuckie’, he allegedly orchestrated the slaughter of up to 250,000 people, many of whom were tortured and raped before being cooked and eaten by Taylor’s troops.
In a wave of terror that horrified the world, Taylor also left tens of thousands of people maimed for life after ordering his drug-crazed fighters to hack off the arms and legs of civilians with machetes.
The despot had first seized power in Liberia in 1997 before moving on to Sierra Leone – which he specifically targeted for its diamonds.
As Liberia and Sierra Leone descended into anarchy, British forces intervened. Members of the SAS and the Special Boat Squadron were sent in after a group of British soldiers was captured in 2000 by one of the many rebel gangs.
After freeing the captured soldiers, and killing huge numbers of the enemy, British intervention signalled the beginning of the end of the war.
A United Nations peace deal finally followed in 2004 and a rebellion in Liberia finally forced Taylor from power.
After frantically trying to hide millions of pounds in bank accounts overseas, Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria. He was later arrested and in 2006 was sent to The Hague, where he has been held in a special prison ever since.
Read more: dailymail.co.uk