Ironically, it was to inject a little honesty and transparency into the business that Taylor first recruited his brother-in-law. The Liberian leader was already thought to be earning millions from the trade, funding a lifestyle that included designer suits, Mercedes cars, his own personal throne and at least 30 children by different women. However, he grew exasperated at the way his diamond packages were often pilfered in transit, and turned to his relative as one of the few people he felt he could trust. From 1998 onwards, Mr Reeves would accompany a heavily armed convoy that would drive along the sunbaked tracks into Sierra Leone's RUF strongholds, trade weapons and ammunition for diamonds, and then ensure that every stone came home accounted for.

None of the parties involved in these deals were the kind of people whom it was wise to double-cross. On Mr Reeves's side was Taylor's diamond-buyer, a Senegalese-born jihadist who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and trained with Hezbollah, plus members of the president's feared "special security service". On the RUF side was commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, a former disco-dancer and hairdresser known for his fondness for hacking off the limbs, ears and lips of his victims. His footsoldiers, meanwhile, had a fondness for drink and marijuana.

"Commanders would come in with parcels of diamonds wrapped in paper and tied with Scotch tape," said Mr Reeves. "We would meet in Bockarie's house and then stick a chair in the middle of the room for the diamonds to be counted on, with a white sheet draped underneath so that if any got dropped we could see them. Then I would declare how many we had received, and Bockarie would tell the commanders, 'Look, President Taylor's brother-in-law is here in person, so nothing is going to go missing'."

As Taylor's own emissary, Mr Reeves had little fear of being robbed en route: in his possession was a special ID card identifying him as a member of the First Family, which guaranteed him passage through any militia checkpoint, and warned that he should not be "molested" in any way. Even so, he would never let the diamonds out of his sight. "At night, I would put them in my front pocket and sleep face down so that nobody could get at them, although any robber would have been crazy to try. The guards would have shot them if they saw so much as a movement in the bushes."

Back in the crumbling Liberian capital, Monrovia, Mr Reeves would deliver the packages to Taylor: in similar fashion to the delivery to Naomi Campbell, the president preferred the hand-over to be done in the small hours. The stones duly checked by an expert, Taylor would then call the international dealers he retained, who included members of the Lebanese diaspora that has long operated all over Africa, and Europeans connected to the diamond market in Antwerp. All had a remarkable ability to summon millions of dollars in cash at short notice, although if they ran short, Taylor was always happy to help. On one occasion, when a buyer turned up with $240,000 in travellers' cheques, his security men forced a bank in Monrovia to cash the lot on the spot. "They didn't normally take travellers' cheques, but were told that this particular 'tourist' was special," Mr Reeves recalled.

On one occasion in 1999, Mr Reeves even accompanied a dealer to Antwerp, where a dozen local diamantaires were invited to submit sealed bids for a pile of stones laid out in the middle of a hotel room. The dealer pocketed $2.35 million that afternoon, with no questions asked. "It was long before anybody knew about blood diamonds," said Mr Reeve. "As far as they were concerned, there was nothing wrong at all."

He knew otherwise, having visited the RUF-controlled mines, where men, women and children were being conscripted to work in appalling conditions. "It was horrific – at one point I saw three or four guards beating a guy with their rifle butts just because he had stopped for a drink of water. They thought he was trying to steal a diamond, and at one point they were going to force-feed him laxative so that it would come out. When I saw that with my own eyes, I began to realise just how bad it all was."

Despite the danger it put him in, Mr Reeves quietly turned supergrass, working with prosecutors from the special court, and, allegedly, with Britain's M16. He handed them records of every transaction he had done, and during field trips began to gather evidence of the atrocities carried out by militia commanders. While he is not expected to give direct evidence to the Hague court, owing partly to a falling-out over the way court officials handled his witness protection provision, he is one of the key sources of information for a trial in which very few people have been brave enough to tell the truth. Among those who have been afraid to do so, he reckons, is Ms Campbell, who denied in court knowing that the stones she got were actually from Mr Taylor. "You could see the fear in her eyes, because she knows who Taylor is now," he said.

Mr Reeves was surprised to hear testimony that he told bodyguards to give her the diamonds in the middle of the night. "For one thing, she is a supermodel – strangers wouldn't be allowed to come knocking on her bedroom door just like that. And Taylor is a flamboyant character – he would want to give her the diamonds in person, because he liked impressing people. If fact, if she hadn't been there, he would have probably given them to Nelson Mandela."

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