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 court’s proposal to give him $50,000 a month for his defense. “What’s been offered to Taylor, presuming he’s indigent, which we doubt, is very adequate,” said prosecutor Stephen Rapp.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Israel’s E1 zone in the West Bank: the death of the two-state solution?The Explainer Controversial new settlement in occupied territories makes future Palestinian state unviable, critics claim
-
What the new Making Tax Digital rules meanThe Explainer A new system will be introduced from April to overhaul how untaxed income is reported to HMRC
-
The former largest iceberg is turning blue. It’s a bad sign.Under the radar It is quickly melting away
