A spokeswoman for the Dutch prosecutors’ office said that defence claims that witnesses were paid

A spokeswoman for the Dutch prosecutors’ office said that defence claims that witnesses were paid off were laughable. Under the legal system in the Netherlands, witnesses are entitled to a living expenses allowance of $30 per day.Mr Kouwenhoven claims he is the victim of a conspiracy and was never close to Mr Taylor “I never once ate with him or played tennis with him We were not the best of friends. According to the defence, UN and NGO reports accusing OTC of illegal logging and exchanging guns for timber were an attempt by opponents of Mr Taylor to cut him off from his biggest source of income. She further claimed prosecution witnesses implicating Mr Kouwenhoven had been paid for testifying and thus could not be trusted.

What we found was horrendous.”In court this month, Mr Kouwenhoven’s lawyer, Inez Weski, painted a very different portrait of her client. “There is no proof that my client committed any offence,” she said in her closing arguments. We exposed the rule of blood diamonds, rainforest timber and guns. He also accused Mr Prescott of being to blame for the way pensioners have been hit by rising council tax bills. “The architect of this disaster loses his job and yet he has still got three homes, two Jags and a fancy office in Whitehall,” Mr Heald said.The Deputy Prime Minister’s nickname “Two Jags” dates back to when he was Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions eight years ago, and was found to have a second-hand Jaguar in his garage at home, as well as the official government Jaguar that he was using.The reference to “three homes” refers to the fact that he has use of a grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall and a country house, Dorneywood, in Kent, as well as his family home in Hull Mr Prescott replied: “Just for the record .. I have one house, one car – 10 years old.

I suspect on the benches opposite, most people have got a lot better than that.”. Gordon Brown is to throw his weight behind Tony Blair’s controversial plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in a setback to opponents of the move. The Chancellor believes that giving nuclear power a new lease of life is part of the solution to Britain’s energy problems. But he admits privately that the public, parliament and environmental groups will need to be convinced about the cost and benefits of the nuclear option.

Allies of Mr Brown said yesterday there was “no real difference” between him and the Prime Minister on the issue, and that he is personally convinced a new nuclear programme is the right way forward.
His backing is a boost for Mr Blair and, following their agreement on pensions, will be seen as a sign that they can still work together on difficult policy issues despite tension between them over when the Prime Minister should stand down.Opponents of nuclear power had hoped Mr Brown, the overwhelming front-runner to succeed Mr Blair, would block the Prime Minister’s plans, to be formally recommended in the Government’s energy review in July.Public opinion is sharply divided. A Populus survey for the Stockholm Network group of think tanks found that 46 per cent of people agreed that “if Britain is to lessen its dependence on foreign energy imports and meet its target for reducing carbon emissions, we may have to build new nuclear power stations in this country.” However, 42% would rather Britain failed to meet its carbon emissions targets and continued to import energy from abroad.Mr Blair faced further criticism yesterday for pre-empting the review by saying in a speech on Tuesday that its first draft had put the nuclear option back on the agenda “with a vengeance.”Friends of the Earth will file a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the draft to be published in full so that there can be a public debate about the “stark facts” on which Mr Blair said he based his judgement.Tony Juniper, the group’s director, said: “He must publish details of the briefing he received from the Department of Trade and Industry, which he has now made so public, so that we can have a transparent and open debate on this issue.”Mr Blair may not need legislation to authorise more nuclear power stations but more than 50 MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for a debate and vote in parliament.It was tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott, who accused Mr Blair of showing “blatant disregard for the views of the people”. But they became mobsters who will go down in history as horrors. They thrive on the corruption and greed in the dark corners of the world.”OTC was given permission by President Taylor to build roads to export the timber and these roads were in turn used to funnel arms to rebel groups in border areas destabilising Sierra Leone, said prosecutors.Professor Crane, the author of the indictment against Mr Taylor, who is now in jail in Sierra Leone, awaiting probable trial at The Hague, adds: “(Mr Kouwenhoven) represents the kind of financier that has ruined large parts of West Africa for personal gain He was a close intimate of Charles Taylor. According to Greenpeace, it is the last bastion of the forest elephant in west Africa.”These were thugs,” says Professor Crane of Mr Taylor and his Dutch business partner.

“Small-time crooks and bit-players who took advantage of the absence of law They were nobodies. The rainforest is home to 9,000 species of plants and 1,300 species of vertebrate animals. Timber was the Liberian government’s biggest source of income, worth $100m (£53m) a year, the UN says.The OTC was granted huge timber concessions in Liberia’s ancient rainforest and the environmental impact of the illegal logging that saw trade increase tenfold in the space of four years was massive. His ships would come into the port in Buchanan, unload Serbian and Chinese arms, bought via a Russian arms dealer – a regular at Hotel Africa – then load up with freshly felled rainforest timber.The prosecution has presented ships’ manifests and logbooks, backed up by personal testimony from former employees of OTC and members of Mr Kouwenhoven’s militia. I could describe to you the horror but you wouldn’t take it in, you couldn’t …