Charles Taylor Takes the Stand

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor took the stand in his own defense at the Hague on Tuesday.

“This whole case against me is a case of deceit, deception and lies,” he told the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting at The Hague.

It was his first time in the stand. Mr. Taylor — the first African leader to be tried for war crimes — said he had “fought all my life to do what I thought was right,” news reports said.

He called the prosecution’s depiction of him “malicious.”

Wearing a dark suit and dark glasses, he introduced himself to the three judges as the 21st president of the Republic of Liberia.

Nigerian Families Settle With Shell

The Nigerian families who sued Shell have settled for $15.5 million. The trial was supposed to begin tomorrow. A previous post on the lawsuit, which was about the execution of protesters in the 1990s, and the Alien Tort Statute under which the case was brought, is here.

While a jury has never found a multinational company to be liable for human rights abuses by a U.S. jury, a few others have settled. In December, a federal jury acquitted Chevron in a lawsuit brought by Nigerians for a violent clash on an oil platform off the country's coast.

From the plaintiffs' attorneys' press release:

Today, the parties in Wiwa v. Shell agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The settlement, whose terms are public, provides a total of $15.5 million. These funds will compensate the 10 plaintiffs, who include family members of the deceased victims; establish a Trust intended to benefit the Ogoni people; and cover a portion of plaintiffs’ legal fees and costs. The settlement is only on behalf of the individual plaintiffs for their individual claims. It does not resolve outstanding issues between Shell and the Ogoni people, and the plaintiffs did not negotiate on behalf of the Ogoni people.

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Marco Simons, [EarthRights International] Legal Director, stated, “The courts repeatedly rejected Shell’s efforts to dismiss this case, setting important legal precedents for the continued prosecution of corporations in breach of international law. This reinforces the plaintiffs’ demands that corporations such as Shell safeguard human rights and the environment.”

Rwandan Charged in Finland

A Rwandan asylum-seeker in Finland has been charged in connection with the Rwandan genocide. Francois Bazaramba, a former Baptist preacher, has been detained in Finland for more than two years.

On Monday, Finland's prosecutor-general said a pre-trial investigation had found evidence that Mr Bazaramba, a Hutu, had "committed a crime of genocide in the municipality of Nyakizu in April and May 1994 with intent to destroy the Rwandan Tutsis partly or totally".

Mr Bazaramba was also charged with 15 counts of murder, he said.

Rwandan authorities accuse him of having participated in planning, leading and carrying out the massacre of 5,000 Tutsis while the head of the Union of Baptist Churches of Rwanda (UEBR) in Nyakizu.

Finnish prosecutors determined that there was enough evidence to try him in Finland. In February, the Rwandan government expressed disappointment in Finland's decision not to extradite Bazaramba. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had said that suspects who are referred to Rwanda may not receive a fair trial.

According to the BBC article, "Finnish law allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed." A previous post on universal jurisdiction is here.