It is a common complaint in Africa that even the most heinous crimes of some of its leaders and warlords merit barely a flicker of attention in the rest of the world while they are being perpetrated.

As the genocidal slaughter began in Rwanda in 1994, TV viewers in Britain and United States were transfixed by the high-speed Californian car chase that ended in the arrest of O. J. Simpson. And for much of the 1990s, the murder and mutilation inflicted on the population of Sierra Leone in a conflict about “blood diamonds” was largely ignored outside West Africa until Britain’s military intervention in 1999.

Now, Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader — accused of backing those who committed the atrocities — is standing trial in The Hague, the first African leader to face a war crimes court. True to form, the world remains largely uninformed about a trial that is throwing up legal issues that have implications for other international tribunals.

One is payment of witnesses. For the prosecution, some of the most valued testimony has come from “insider” witnesses, either former aides of Taylor or senior figures in the rebel groups in Sierra Leone, who negotiated with the Liberians to secure guns in return for supplying diamonds.

In the past year one of these witnesses, Isaac Tamba Mongor — a self-confessed killer who admitted in court that he had burnt down villages and slaughtered civilians — received payments totalling $4,800 (£2,400) for food, medical and childcare expenses, visits to his relatives in the provinces and to buy top-up cards for his mobile phone. All these payments have been made by the victim and witness service section of the court registry. The chief prosecutor and registrar say everything is declared and above board. The defence is crying foul.

Terry Munyard, of Garden Court Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, Taylor’s co-counsel, outlines the charge sheet: “Reimbursing witnesses for genuine expenses is entirely legitimate. Handouts to help them with school fees and buy uniforms for their children, which has happened in some cases, is not. Some people have approached us offering to give evidence for the defence if we will pay them more than they are being offered by the prosecution. Frankly, this corrodes the whole system of justice that the international tribunals are supposed to be upholding.”

The defence also complains that press conferences given by the prosecution in West Africa, while the trial has been in progress, have made it more difficult to find those prepared to testify for Taylor. “When the chief prosecutor stands up in Monrovia [the capital of Liberia],” Munyard says, “and makes extravagant claims about Taylor and the millions of dollars he has supposedly salted away, it clearly has an inhibiting effect on potential defence witnesses. They fear that they will be put on some UN war crimes list if they come forward.”

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is not the first international tribunal to be the focus of such criticisms, nor the first where some observers detect a legal culture clash between US and UK practices.

Taylor’s defence team comes mainly from the English Bar. The two key figures in the Office of the Prosecutor are American. Stephen Rapp, from Iowa, is the chief prosecutor. “In the jurisdiction I come from, witness payments can be made by a US marshal where appropriate. But listen, we are talking about reimbursement of expenses here. Nobody is being enriched through testifying.

“In cases where we have had to relocate a witness because of fear of reprisals, it’s right that we should take care of things such as school fees if their children can no longer go to the local mission school. The principle is that nobody should be worse off as a result of testifying.”

The monetary issue of greatest concern to the special court is the continual struggle to garner the contributions to keep it alive and functioning. Unlike the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Sierra Leone court relies on voluntary payments from states rather than assessed contributions from the UN.

Four states have borne the brunt — the US, Canada, Britain and the Netherlands. “Other contributions have been sporadic,” Herman von Hebel,the registrar, admits. “I spend about a third of my time going around with a begging bowl. We need $68 million to complete our work by 2010 and we have guaranteed funding of only $23 million. The present funding will last until the autumn. It is a great worry.”

Though this is an African tribunal — albeit one sitting in Europe for the Taylor trial for security reasons — the only financial contributor from Africa is Nigeria. This is ironic because Taylor was given sanctuary there for three years before his protection was removed and he was arrested.

Despite everything — the financial uncertainty, the death threats to witnesses and an attack on the family home of a witness in Liberia — the trial is progressing and impressing many seasoned observers. Professor Michael Scharf, an expert on war crimes tribunals, says: “Although Taylor’s very presence is intimidating to witnesses, he is not disrupting proceedings and his legal team is doing an impressive job. For now, the court is setting a good precedent for the future.”

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