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International Tribunals (Sierra Leone) Bill [Lords]

I have the pleasure of being chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the west African Mano river region, which includes Sierra Leone as well as Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau. I have fulfilled the role for the past two years, and it is not a particularly easy one, because not many people are interested in that part of the world. It is a very poor part of the world, there is not an awful lot of oil about, and in my opinion it is dreadfully neglected. My involvement with Sierra Leone began when I was invited to be part of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation at the behest of Mr. Win Griffiths, the former Member of Parliament for Bridgend. He took me to Sierra Leone shortly after the British Army brought the rebels to their knees in the centre of Freetown. It was a difficult visit for me to undertake: I knew nothing about Sierra Leone, and was as guilty of neglect and lack of interest as—I suspect—were my colleagues. Some people find it necessary to go to a place to appreciate it properly, and I am afraid that I am one of those people. I suppose it is a sad commentary on myself. It is almost impossible to describe the state of Sierra Leone at the time of my visit. I know that other Members have been there as well, and I expect they will speak later about their impressions of the environment and the people, but at the time of my visit Freetown consisted of a collection of human beings, none of whom held each other’s hands, shuffling along the streets. There were, and still are, approximately 2 million people living in a city designed for 250,000, and during the week that I spent there I saw not one person smile. I saw not one spark of life in anyone. I suppose that a nation recovering from the worst civil war it is possible to imagine would be expected to react in that way. The action of the British Army was greeted with tremendous gratitude. I attended our Prime Minister’s celebrations in Sierra Leone two weeks ago, when he was awarded a doctorate for services to the country, and there was not a person there who was not crying. Although the war had finished a long time ago, there was not a person in Sierra Leone who was not dreadfully affected by what the rebels had done. There was not one family who had not lost someone, and not in an ordinary way. I am not talking about a ““decent”” death by, for instance, shooting; I am talking about mutilation and torture of whose like no special court has heard in the history of special courts, certainly since the Nuremberg trials. I am tremendously proud of the actions of our Government. I am proud that we stepped in as a result of President Kabbah’s request, I am proud that we are still there, and I am proud that we have provided money for the Special Court. Neither the area nor the activity is popular and justice is an expensive business, but we have stepped in. We are here today because of the nature of that Special Court, and the fact that it differs from other special courts that have been established. We are here to seek the House’s agreement that if Charles Taylor were convicted of the crimes of which he is accused, we would undertake our role and ensure that he was imprisoned here in the United Kingdom. I think it right and proper for us to take responsible action in the light of what this man has done, and the problem that he continuously presents to the people of Sierra Leone. I know a lot about Charles Taylor because I have spoken to hundreds of people who suffered, indirectly or directly, at his hands. To say that he is the most despicable man of whom I have ever read or heard is an understatement. I spoke to the former chief prosecutor of the Special Court, Mr. David Crane. David had the challenging job of setting up the Special Court, and he did a magnificent job, along with colleagues from the United Kingdom. He said, ““Every one of us working in this court has experience of the court in Rwanda, and we have worked in Bosnia. In fact, many of us were there during the latter days of the Nuremberg trials. The crimes that we are being asked to consider now make the crimes committed in those other atrocities pale into insignificance.”” As my hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East pointed out today, Charles Taylor was considered the worst of all because of the type of crime that he committed and oversaw. He was of course responsible for the rebel army that perpetrated crimes on his behalf. In my mind there is no doubt at all that he is guilty of the crimes of which he is accused because, as I say, I have spoken to people who suffered directly at his hands. I have visited Sierra Leone on many occasions since my first visit; in fact, I have undertaken seven visits so far, and I made four of them to listen to proceedings in the Special Court. I shall describe the Special Court to everyone, because I recognise that I am in a privileged position in being able to do so. The Special Court is a unique building in a unique setting. It is designed purely to hold the 11 men accused of committing the crimes in question, so the facilities are restricted to provision for just 11 men. There is an extensive compound, which is available to the prosecution and defence teams, who can use it to prepare and review their work. There are special facilities for witnesses who come to the court. Many of those witnesses are either direct victims, or have watched a procedure, and may be the only witnesses left to testify to an atrocity. A United Nations force is there, and there are representatives from all over the world who staff the Special Court to make sure that the international standards that have been established to support it are enforced on a daily basis. Admittance and access to the Special Court are by invitation only, but the Special Court does not begin to compare with one of our secure prisons. I do not want hon. Members to think of it as a heavily defended facility, because it is not. It is not as well defended as one of our open prisons—well, that might be doing it a disservice, but not too much of one. There is some inspection and interrogation of visitors, but if someone was determined to get into the Special Court, they could. I think that that was one of the reasons why President Kabbah and other leaders in the west coast region wanted to move Charles Taylor out—they recognised that they could not build a facility like Fort Knox or Wakefield prison, which houses huge numbers of sex offenders. There could be no wall 30 ft high and 9 ft thick, with barbed wire. It does not look like that. The front wall is perhaps 12 ft high with a bit of barbed wire, but the building is no fortress. Once one gets into the main court area, access to the court is fairly straightforward. There is some bag checking. In the court itself, there is a small area in which visitors can witness proceedings, but the court is very small. Visitors are separated from the accused by a glass wall, which is there to protect visitors from the view of the accused. That, of course, is done to ensure that none of the accused can let supporters who come to witness proceedings know who they regard as potential enemies in need of disposal. The facilities in which the prisoners are kept are good by our standards, and I have visited a significant number of prisons in the UK. There is no doubling-up in the Special Court; there is a cell for everyone. A single corridor fronts each and every cell, and every cell has a door. By Sierra Leone standards, we are talking about exceptional accommodation. It is a concern to millions of people in that country that those who perpetrated the worst crimes against them have suddenly found themselves in what they would call five-star luxury—and it is five-star luxury. As I say, by our standards they are very good cells. They are large—they are about 12 ft by 7 ft—and they contain a good bed, a television, plenty of air, and lighting. The vast majority of people in Sierra Leone do not have access to electricity, but people who are accused of serious crimes there have access to light. The facilities available to people accused of crimes in the Special Court are therefore exceptionally good. As I said earlier, I do not think that we need to worry too much about the health of the people held in the Special Court: I was told that if I fell ill while I was in Sierra Leone, there was only place that I would be taken to, and that was the health facility in the Special Court. There is every intention of ensuring that if anything happens to any of the men accused they will get immediate medical assistance, because nobody in Sierra Leone wants those men to die any sooner than is absolutely necessary. Everybody wants to make sure that they are as well and as fit as possible, because they must be seen to stand trial for the crimes of which they are accused. I hope that I have described the nature of the Special Court and the conditions in which the men there are being held. I regard the conditions as exceptionally good, even by our standards. However, safety standards there leave a huge amount to be desired, when compared to those in our country. I want to talk briefly about Charles Taylor. I do not intend to describe his indictment, although I have a record of it in front of me.