The former warlord president of Liberia, on trial for genocide, has converted to Judaism, one of his wives told the BBC.
"He is now a Jew," Victoria Taylor said of her husband Charles, who has been charged with war crimes connected to atrocities committed during the gruesome Sierra Leone civil war, which ended in 2002.
The radio interview was broadcast last week after Victoria Taylor's three-week visit with her husband at The Hague.
"Because of the difficulties, he always wanted to know God in a very different and special way," she told the BBC.
Charles Taylor, 60, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture and using child soldiers. He is accused of orchestrating violence in Sierra Leone's civil war and trading in illegally mined diamonds to finance the conflict.
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