In this image made from television broadcast Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by the International Criminal...
In this image made from television broadcast Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by the International Criminal Court, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, address the U.N. backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. Wearing a gray double-breasted suit and dark glasses, Taylor spoke confidently as he introduced himself to the three-judge panel as the 21st president of the Republic of Liberia. It was his first time on the witness stand. Taylor is charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, using child soldiers and spreading terror during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. He is the first African leader to stand trial for war crimes. (AP Photo/ICC)
(AP)
The American CIA and Libya's leader Moammar Gadhafi both had a hand in Charles Taylor's rise to power as Cold War politics and pan-African struggles helped propel him to the presidency in Liberia, according to his testimony Wednesday at his war crimes trial.
Taylor sketched a turbulent African continent in the 1980s that was the backdrop for American anti-communist efforts and African freedom fighters backed by Gadhafi fighting to shake off "the yoke of colonialism."
Taylor is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity and using child soldiers in his role backing rebels in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. He has denounced the accusations against him as "disinformation, misinformation, lies, rumors."
He took the stand for the first time Tuesday after listening in silence to 91 prosecution witnesses, many of them describing murders, mutilations, tortures and acts of cannibalism by Sierra Leonean rebels. Others who claimed to be former Taylor aides gave accounts of his communications with the rebels and supplying them with weapons, and the transfer of illicit diamonds in return.
In 10 hours of testimony over two days, Taylor portrayed himself as a liberator of the Liberian people whose intention was to sweep away the corrupt military regime in Monrovia and establish democracy.
His lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, said the former president is enjoying his time on the stand at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
"He's over the moon, he's buzzing," Griffiths told reporters during a break.
Taylor's testimony is expected to take several weeks before prosecutors begin their cross-examination.
In his second day of questioning by Griffiths, Taylor described a tumultuous period of coups and executions in Liberia, a West African nation buffeted by Cold War politics after a sergeant major in the Liberian army, Samuel Doe, seized power in a bloody coup in 1980.
Waving his hands or pointing his finger, Taylor gave an animated account of his falling out with Doe, his flight to the United States for safety and his escape via a sheet knotted to a window's bars from a Massachusetts prison where he was being held on an extradition request after the regime accused him of embezzling $900,000.
