11:30 (with half hour delay): Court is back in session.

Pros: Question for Smillie.  Tell us about the organization CUSO that you worked for, as a teacher in Koidu and elsewhere.

Smillie: It’s the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), similiar to the American Peace Corps, which sends young people overseas to assist developming countries.

Pros: Was information in the clip we’ve just seen accurate?

IS: Yes, it was general, but accurate.

Pros: Is there a linear relationship between the number of carats a diamond has an its value?

IS: Value increases exponentially with size, and there are other factors such as color and clarity.  A five carat diamond is worth much more than five one-carat diamonds.  The cut of the diamond also determines its final value, but this generally doesn’t affect the value of rough diamonds unless its apparent that a good cut wouldn’t be possible with a particular rough diamond.  Two general categories: industrial diamonds and gem diamonds.

Pros: How are diamonds created?

IS: All through volcanic action and pressure in the earth.  Can be very small – ranging from half the size of the courtroom to half a kilometer wide.  Kimberlite pipes can be found intact, such as those in Canada, South Africa.  Diamonds were all formed 50 million years ago.  In some places, the top of the pipe has washed away, and those diamonds that are washed away by rivers are called alluvial diamonds.  In some cases the rivers no longer exist.  In Namibia, the diamonds have washed into the ocean, so mining is done on the ocean floor off the coast.  In Sierra Leone, Liberia, etc, alluvial diamonds are scattered over hundreds of square kilometers.  Sometimes diamonds are sitting on the surface, or just below. 

Judge Sebutinde: What is the relevance?  Does any of this relate to the indictment?

Pros: There are kimberlites in Sierra Leone, important for judges to understand how mining is years ago.  Related to indictment because prosecution will show that campaign of terror was used to control illicit diamond mining – important to understand how diamonds are spread out.

Sebutinde: OK, but keep it short.

To Smillie: Can you describe how diamonds go from mining to retail?

IS: A lot of small miners in Sierra Leone, Congo, etc.  Miners sell to dealers who sell to exporters, who send them all around the world.

Pros: What is Belgium’s role?

IS: Used to be main center of polishing.  That’s no longer the case, but Antwerp remains main hub of diamond trade.  Much of the polishing is done in India.

IS: