THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Ending three years of silence, former Liberian President Charles Taylor began building his defence against war crimes charges Tuesday, portraying himself as a peacemaker rather than the cannibalistic warlord described by prosecutors.
"I am not guilty of all these charges, not even a minute part of these charges," he said from the witness stand, he said, raising his voice in anger. "This whole case is a case of deceit, deception and lies."
Taylor, who was reared in the idealism of the African liberation movements of the 1960s to become one West Africa's most powerful men 30 years later, is charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers and terrorism in his role backing rebels in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war.
An estimated 500,000 were the victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during that war, with some of the worst crimes committed by child soldiers, who were drugged to desensitize them to the horror of their actions.
Taylor's case has been hailed as a landmark in efforts hold autocratic leaders responsible for human rights abuses that occurred under their regimes. But it also may have contributed to an African backlash.
An African Union summit earlier this month rallied behind Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir has refused to recognize the court or surrender, and the African leaders said they would not arrest and extradite him to The Hague for trial.
Like other deposed leaders before him who faced judgment -- Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein -- Taylor used his day in court as a platform to display devotion to his people and deflect allegations of wrongdoing.
Critics say the courts have been too lenient in the past, giving men who led their countries into mayhem a chance to rewrite history. Many legal experts faulted Milosevic's judges for letting the Serbian strongman virtually seize control of the trial, which ended prematurely in 2006 when he died of a heart attack.
Taylor said he worked during his 1997-2003 presidency to rebuild Liberia after a devastating seven-year civil war and to broker a settlement in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
"We were just preoccupied with ... trying to bring Liberia back to life," he said. "Unless peace came to Sierra Leone, there was no way Liberia could make it."
Wearing tinted glasses, Taylor slipped on headphones even though the trial was conducted in English which he spoke with an East Coast-inflected American accent.
The 61-year-old former president fidgeted with his microphone and water glass before taking the first question from his defence counsel, but he spoke with the confidence of a practiced politician. Using no notes, he reeled off the names of African leaders and former associates, though he had to be prompted to recall his grandmother's name.
He used tough language to counter accusations against him, but Taylor voiced true outrage only once in his opening day of testimony when he recounted his betrayal by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who gave him sanctuary in 2003 and then acquiesced to his arrest three years later.
Asked what he would do if he were in a closed room with Obasanjo, Taylor said "you would see two presidents in a little tussle." He added: "I'm damned angry."
Immediately addressing the worst accusations, his British attorney Courtney Griffiths asked Taylor to respond to charges that he is "everything from a terrorist to a rapist."
It is "very, very, very unfortunate that the prosecution -- because of disinformation, misinformation, lies, rumours -- would associate me with such titles or descriptions," Taylor said. "I resent that characterization of me. It is false, it is malicious."
He denied sponsoring the rebel invasion of Sierra Leone, tolerating amputations, plotting the capture of the capital Freetown, or receiving illegally mined "blood diamonds."
"People have me eating human beings. How can people bring themselves so low," he said, dismissing the account of a former bodyguard who claimed to see Taylor eat a human liver.
Prosecutors called 91 witnesses to argue that Taylor provided arms, money and political support to Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for the neighbouring country's mineral wealth, encouraging the rebels to terrorize the countryside to suppress any opposition.
Over 18 months, dozens of witnesses, some missing their hands, testified to the brutality of the rebel forces. Other witnesses formerly associated with Taylor claimed to have passed weapons and messages to the rebels on Taylor's orders and transferred diamonds -- sometimes in mayonnaise jars -- in return.
Taylor's defence team says the prosecution failed to link the former president to the atrocities that undeniably occurred during Sierra Leone's upheavals.
Guided by Griffiths, Taylor give a quick sketch of his career, from his first involvement in expatriate Liberian politics as an economics student in the United States to his resignation from the presidency, which he said was forced by "regime-change politics" of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Taylor described his 1989 coup against the U.S.-backed regime of Samuel Doe as an effort to bring multiparty democracy and the rule of law to his country, which was founded by former American slaves in the mid-19th century and was governed by an upper class of Americo-Liberians until Doe seized power in 1980.
Taylor's testimony is expected to last several weeks. The defence has lined up about 200 more witnesses, although it was unclear how many would be called to the stand.
His appearance at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone was widely broadcast in West Africa, giving Liberians their first chance to hear him since he resigned under international pressure in 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria. He was arrested in 2006, and the trial was moved to The Hague for fear it could provoke violence if staged in Freetown.
The event dominated street discussions and newspaper and radio news headlines in Monrovia. It "disproved the minds of many who had thought he was not going to co-operate," said Anthony Taylor, sitting in a downtown Monrovia cafe. He is not related to the former leader.
Yomba Sesay said she travelled 480 kilometres to Freetown, to see Taylor testify.
"From the way Charles Taylor is speaking, I do not believe he is the only big man that was involved in the atrocities committed during the war that we in Sierra Leone suffered from," she said, hoping Taylor would disclose the names of others.
"During the war my brother, who was a police officer and the bread winner of our family, was killed by rebels and today I am suffering," Sesay said.
