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Home / World

The testimonies: Campbell, White and Farrow - how accounts differ

By Mark Hughes
Independent·
10 Aug, 2010 05:30 PM3 mins to read

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THE HAGUE - Quantity of diamonds

Naomi Campbell said she received "two, maybe three" diamonds.

Carole White said "five or six".

Mia Farrow said Campbell told her it was one "huge" diamond, then later conceded that Campbell had not used the word huge.

Who gave them to Campbell

All parties agree that two men had visited Campbell during the night.

Campbell said she did not know who had sent the men and only assumed they had come on behalf of Charles Taylor after Farrow or Carole White suggested so.

Farrow said repeatedly that Campbell was the one who suggested that the diamond or diamonds had come from Taylor.

White said that Campbell had not only known the diamonds were from Charles Taylor, but she had known that in advance of the diamonds being delivered to her room.

What they were

Campbell said that she did not know that they were diamonds until White or Farrow suggested that was the case.

Farrow said the suggestion that the stones were diamonds came from Campbell. White also said that Campbell knew the stones were diamonds.

Seating arrangements at dinner

White said Campbell was sitting at the dinner with Taylor on her left and Taylor's Minister of Defence on her right.

Campbell says she was sitting between Nelson Mandela and the music producer Quincy Jones.

Farrow could not recall the seating arrangements.

When it was decided the diamonds would go to charity

Farrow said that Campbell had announced: "Of course, I don't intend to keep the diamond. Of course I will give it to Madiba's [Mandela's] children's charity."

Campbell said she had decided that she would give the stones to the children's charity, but that she had not discussed it with Farrow at breakfast.

White said that she had to persuade Campbell not to keep the diamonds as it was illegal and so she should give them to charity.

The sequence of events that night

Campbell's story is simple: She was awoken in the night by an unexpected knock at her bedroom door. When she answered she was given a pouch and told it was a "gift for you".

She then returned to bed and, because she was tired, did not even check what was in the pouch until the next morning when she discovered what she thought were "dirty-looking pebbles".

It was not until it was suggested they were diamonds that she realised their true identity.

White tells a different story. She says that Campbell and Taylor had been flirting at the dinner table and Taylor had told her he was going to get her a gift of diamonds.

After the dinner, White says, plans were made for Taylor's staff to collect the diamonds from Johannesburg and bring them to the guesthouse where Campbell was staying.

White said that she and Campbell went to the guesthouse and waited for the men to arrive.

She said Campbell was in contact with the driver of the vehicle carrying the stones and that twice she and the supermodel had gone into the garden, believing the car was close.

Later they went to bed, but, before retiring, White says she was disturbed by men throwing pebbles at her window.

When she looked outside, the two men said they had something for Campbell.

White says the men were let in and had Coca-Colas with Campbell before giving her the diamonds and leaving.

- INDEPENDENT

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