Taylor respects court, likes mutli-colored highlighters

Today is my second (and last) day observing Taylor’s trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. I spent most of yesterday watching the trial in a viewing room behind a glass wall. Today I am up in the press room, watching the trial on a video feed so that I can use the Internet at the same time.

Yesterday, in the viewing room, there were at most six observers at any one time. The witness sat with his back to us, and the four judges faced us. The defense team, including three lawyers and Charles Taylor, and two security guards, were on our left. The prosecution team was on our right. Taylor was perhaps twenty feet away from me, in a grey suit, sky blue tie, gold-rimmed sunglasses (which he occasionally swapped with a pair of reading glasses) and gold Africa-shaped cufflinks. Inevitably, after staring at him for about 60 seconds, we made eye contact. I had to make a conscious effort to stop staring for the next few hours.

We had the option to listen to the witnesses’ testimony in Krio, or listen to the interpreter. I switched back and forth with my headphones. One of the interpreters was excellent–really got the intonation and everything.

For me, the most newsworthy thing I am noticing is that Taylor respects the court and the trial. This gives the Special Court a level of credbility that even I didn’t grant it before. Taylor follows everything that is happening. If there is a reference to a document, he follows it. At one point he flipped over a page from the transcript and I saw lots of multi-colored highlighting. When he was excused from the court for a few minutes he gave a slight bow to the judges.

When I’ve had time to put my thoughts together I’m going to post a longer entry about what I’ve seen.