Witness Foday Lansana testified that on the same day of the meeting between Charles Taylor and the members of the Special Forces in the radio room at the Coca Cola Factory in Monrovia, Lansana heard an interview with Charles Taylor on the BBC Radio. In this radio broadcast Lansana heard about the war in Liberia. There was a serious panic at the factory because of attacks on the NPFL in Monrovia and the highway was cut off by Prince Johnson’s troops.

Lansana remained with the NPFL and went for advanced communications training in 1990, before he went on leave and visited his grandfather in Bomaru, Sierra Leone. He was captured by NPFL/RUF fighters who were fighting side by side in Sierra Leone. Lansana was sent to Voya, the RUF/NPFL Headquearters for Lofa County, Liberia, to continue his work as a radio operator. He was kept under supervision, because he was suspected to have absconded from the NPFL. He saw trucks carrying reinforcement troops, arms and food into Sierra Leone. Lansana recounted that in order to disguise that they were fighting in Sierra Leone, the troops referred to that country as “Kuwait”. This was, according to Lansana, because Sierra Leone was a very rich country. Then the Witness himself was sent to Sierra Leone, where he met with Foday Sankoh and installed a radio at Sankoh’s headquarters in Sierra Leone, so Sankoh could communicate, amongst others, with “Butterfly”, a codename for the radio station under the direct command of Charles Taylor.

The Court adjourned for lunch at 1.30 p.m. and will continue at 2.30 p.m.