Ractliffe charged over Naomi gems

The South African man to whom super-model Naomi Campbell testified she gave diamonds is now facing criminal charges, an official said.

National Director of Public Prosecutions spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said on Friday that Jeremy Ractliffe appeared in a Johannesburg court on Tuesday. Mhaga said Ractliffe would be back in court on October 26 on charges of possessing uncut diamonds.

He said Ractliffe has been charged for violating the Diamonds Act of 1956, which makes it an offence to possess uncut diamonds. Mhaga said the case was postponed to give Ractliffe's lawyers time to make representation to the NPA.

"He is out on warning," Mhaga told The Associated Press.

In 1997 Ractliffe was chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund when Campbell said she received uncut diamonds after a charity fundraiser also attended by Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor is being tried in The Hague for trading in illegal diamonds, or "blood diamonds," to arm rebels in Sierra Leone.

Campbell testified that she received the diamonds from three men who came to her hotel room. She said she did not know the source of the diamonds, but other witnesses said she bragged about getting them from Taylor.

Campbell said she gave Ractliffe the diamonds the morning after she received them, as a donation to Mandela's charity. Ractliffe said he didn't tell the foundation about the diamonds, and kept the stones in a safe for 13 years until he handed them over to police in August.

Ractliffe, a respected businessman, has said he kept the stones and did not report them to authorities in a bid to protect the reputations of Mandela, Campbell and the charity, of which he was a founder.

Ractliffe, then a trustee of the fund, left the organisation after the scandal broke.

It is illegal in South Africa to possess a rough diamond because of possible links to conflict zones, money-laundering and other crimes. -