Johnson, now a senator in the Liberian legislature, had himself videotaped drinking Budweiser beer as he ordered his men to cut off the former president's ears, but he has maintained that Doe was killed by others.
Taylor is the first defense witness in the trial that opened in January 2008. A grim parade of prosecution witnesses from Sierra Leone, some with amputated limbs, described murders, tortures and the conscription of children who were drugged and sent into battle. Other witnesses sought to link Taylor to the rebel atrocities, alleging that he commanded the militias from the presidential mansion in Liberia and supplied them with weapons in exchange for illicit diamonds.
In his first three days, Taylor sketched a portrait of a turbulent African continent in the 1980s, where American anti-communist efforts held sway and African freedom fighters backed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi struggled to shake off "the yoke of colonialism."
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