Nigeria, Feb. 10 -- Prosecution and defence went head-to-head on the reliability of news references to Gibril Massaquoi's whereabouts at the start the second week of the trial against him at the Pirkanmaa District Court in the Finnish city of Tampere.

Sierra Leonean Mr Massaquoi is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape and murder, allegedly committed in Liberia during the country's second civil war in 1999-2003. The former spokesman and commander in the Sierra Leonean armed rebel group, Revolutionary United Front (RUF), relocated to Finland in 2008, where he is being tried based on universal jurisdiction.

One of the charges by Finnish State Prosecutor Tom Laitinen centers on murders that Mr Massaquoi allege...