The subject of blood diamonds has always been shocking, but it seems Nelson Mandela’s charity boss Jeremy Ractliffe has challenged Naomi Campbell‘s testimony even further that she didn’t know the blood diamonds given to her after a charity dinner in 1997 were from former Liberian president, Charles Taylor.
Taylor is currently being tried on eleven counts of war crimes in Sierra Leone, including charges of rape, sexual slavery and murder, and has been accused of possessing uncut diamonds.
“Naomi Campbell told us that late on the night of September 25th, two people whose names she did not know came to her room and handed her three diamonds as a present from the African leader who had sat next to her at the dinner party,” said Ractliffe in a statement read to a court in Johannesburg.
“She appeared to be at a loss as to what to do with them. She suggested that they be possibly given to the fund. I told her I did not want to involve the fund in anything that could possibly be of dubious origin, or even illegal.”
The British supermodel had originally said two unknown men had knocked on her hotel room door, after the charity dinner she attended with Taylor, with a pouch filled with “dirty-looking stones,” as Naomi described them.
Campbell said she then gave the diamonds to Ractliffe, who handed them over to the police, reports Vogue UK.
Stay tuned for further updates.