Naomi Campbell says she has ‘nothing to gain’ from false trial testimony

Stressing she had “nothing to gain,” supermodel Naomi Campbell denied providing false testimony at the war crimes trial of Liberian ex-leader Charles Taylor, who is accused of receiving blood diamonds.

“I’ve no motive here. Nothing to gain,” she said in a statement released in London late Tuesday.

The model defended her testimony after her former agent, Carole White, and US actress Mia Farrow both told judges this week that Ms Campbell had accepted a gift of diamonds from Mr Taylor and boasted about it the next day.

Ms Farrow said Ms Campbell had named former Liberian president Taylor as the man who sent her a “huge diamond”.

This contradicted Ms Campbell’s testimony last Thursday at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, in which the model said she was not certain about the identity of the person who sent her the parcel of gems.

In her statement last Tuesday, the 40-year-old model did however concede that she had slipped up when she told judges during her testimony that coming to court was a “big inconvenience”.

And she stressed: “I am a black woman who has and will always support good causes especially relating to Africa.”

According to Ms White, the supermodel’s agent at the time, Ms Campbell and Mr Taylor had flirted throughout a charity dinner hosted by South Africa’s then president Nelson Mandela in Pretoria in September 1997.

At one point, “she told me: ‘he is going to give me some diamonds’,” Ms White said in her testimony on Monday. “She was very excited.”

Defending Mr Taylor, lawyer Courtenay Griffiths on Tuesday branded Ms White’s account a “complete pack of lies”.

“You’ve made it up to assist in your lawsuit (for breach of contract) against Ms Campbell. Bluntly, for you this is all about money.”

But Ms White, 60, insisted she was not lying: “It is totally the truth. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my business argument with Naomi Campbell.”

On Monday, Dr Griffiths also sought to discredit Ms Farrow.

“Mia Farrow sees herself as the modern-day Mother Theresa to Africa,” he told a press conference. “She does not have an open mind so far as Charles Taylor is concerned. She is looking for sainthood.”

Giving testimony last week, Ms Campbell conceded that two men brought a pouch containing two or three “dirty-looking stones” to her bedroom at the presidential guesthouse in Pretoria.

She said she did not know who the gift came from, but “assumed” it was from Mr Taylor. The model said she donated the diamonds to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund the following day.

Prosecutors are trying to link the gift to Mr Taylor, whom they accuse of having taken a consignment of uncut diamonds to South Africa “to sell... or exchange them for weapons” for Sierra Leone rebels.