The Hague
The war crimes trial of former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor was halted before it could even start this week, when Taylor claimed he could not afford a lawyer. Taylor, who is charged with arming rebels who killed and mutilated hundreds of thousands of civilians in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, said he is in a state of partial indigence. A United Nations report, though, found that Taylor has access to several million dollars of the nearly half-billion-dollar fortune he amassed during his reign. He also refused the courts proposal to give him $50,000 a month for his defense. Whats been offered to Taylor, presuming hes indigent, which we doubt, is very adequate, said prosecutor Stephen Rapp.
