THE MAN to whom Naomi Campbell says she gave the bag of what are believed to be diamonds, refused to confirm if he still had the stones in his possession yesterday.
The British supermodel testified that she passed the “dirty-looking stones” on to Jeremy Ratcliffe, then chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, intending that he use them for charity.
She said she called Mr Ratcliffe a year ago to ask what he had done with the stones, and he told her he still had them.
Contacted by phone yesterday, Mr Ratcliffe did not deny receiving the assumed diamonds but claimed that legal restrictions bound him to silence.
“The matter is sub judice and I’m not prepared to comment,” he said.
The fund has categorically denied ever having diamonds in its possession. Mr Ratcliffe added only: “The fund is correct.”
Now chairman of Joint Education Trust Education Services in South Africa, Mr Ratcliffe declined to elaborate and calls went unanswered for the rest of the day.
Calls to his homes in Johannesburg and Plettenberg Bay also remained unanswered.
There was no sign of Mr Ratcliffe at his luxury three-storey home in Atholl, an upmarket neighbourhood in Sandton, Johannesburg’s wealthiest suburb.
Mr Ratcliffe’s daughter, Claudia, answered an intercom to say he was out and she did not wish to comment.
The house boasts a large security gate patrolled by guard dogs. It has whitewashed brick walls, brown shutters and window frames, with a large tree and a neat row of bushes in its bricked forecourt.
A security sign warns that would-be burglars will be met with an “armed response”.
In court yesterday, Campbell stressed she did not know whether the stones in question came from Taylor, after a party hosted by Nelson Mandela in Cape Town in 1997.
She said she handed them to Mr Ratcliffe upon boarding a luxury train the following day.
Campbell told the court: “I gave the stones to Jeremy. Immediately, I got on the train I looked for him . . . I said take them, do something good with them, make the children better, I don’t want to keep them. Once I gave them to Jeremy, they were out of my hands.”
Oupa Ngwenya, a spokesman for the Children’s Fund, said it had been unable to locate Mr Ratcliffe yesterday, and he could not be reached by phone.
Mr Ngwenya confirmed Mr Ratcliffe remains a trustee of the charity. He added: “We have no record of diamonds being in our possession.”
In a letter presented in court by the defence, the Children’s Fund said it had “never received a diamond or diamonds from Ms Campbell or from anyone else. It would have been improper and illegal to have done so.”
– (Guardian service)