Nigeria, Feb. 28 -- There were more extraordinary scenes in the trial of Alieu Kosiah for war crimes in Switzerland on Thursday when the second of Mr Kosiah's own witnesses, there supposedly to back his claims of innocence, told the court that Mr Kosiah committed the war crime of recruiting a child soldier.

The witness, a former ULIMO combatant whose identity is being concealed by the order of the court, testified that Mr Kosiah recruited children, including the first defence witness, who appeared the previous day, as combatants.

"I know that Kosiah had RTOs as bodyguards," said the man, who testified before the court in Bellinzona from an undisclosed location via videoconference. "I knew one of them." "RTO" was what ULIMO called child-...