Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, claimed the war crimes case against him was built on lies and deceit as he took the stand as a witness in his trial at a special court in The Hague.

Mr Taylor, 61, is accused of orchestrating a campaign of terror in Sierra Leone to gain control of the neighbouring country’s diamond resources, using methods including murder, sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers during a decade-long civil war.

Protesting his innocence on Tuesday in his first testimony in the two-year trial, the first African leader to be tried for war crimes seized on allegations made by a prosecution witness that he had eaten human hearts.

“Here people have me eating human beings,” a confident Mr Taylor told the court. “Charles Taylor is supposed to be with an orderly of one of my security personnel sitting down eating human beings.

“Charles Taylor is supposed to be out there like some little common street thug involving himself in the acquiescence of rape and murder. This whole case has been about ‘let’s get Taylor’... Haven’t they had their pound of flesh yet? I am not guilty of all of these charges.”

Joseph “Zigzag” Marzah, who described himself as Mr Taylor’s former death squad commander, told the United Nations-backed court in March that he, Mr Taylor and Benjamin Yeaten, Mr Taylor’s former chief of staff, were all members of a traditional west African secret religious society and had on several occasions eaten human hearts.

The prosecution case rests on evidence from 91 witnesses, many of whom have described in horrific detail atrocities committed during the 1991-2002 civil war that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced a third of Sierra Leone’s population.

Prosecutors have sought to link Mr Taylor to the crimes through the testimony of former members of rebel groups such as a radio operator who overheard orders from Mr Taylor to rebel leaders.

His defence team is arguing that he could not have micromanaged a war in a neighbouring country while at the same time governing Liberia. They also contend that Mr Taylor was a peacemaker in the region who became the victim of “regime change” orchestrated by the US.

On Tuesday Mr Taylor also argued that he stood down as president in 2003 with assurances from the African Union that he would not have to answer an indictment for war crimes.

The argument is similar to one deployed by Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who shares a detention centre with Mr Taylor in The Hague. Mr Karadzic has claimed the US offered him immunity from prosecution for war crimes.

Mr Taylor, wearing gold-rimmed tinted glasses in the windowless courtroom, gave an assured performance with one 10-second pause during which he appeared overcome.

He denied receiving diamonds “whether it is in mayonnaise, or coffee or whatever kind of jar” from rebels inside Sierra Leone and portrayed himself as man of humble origins who had sought to unite his country.

His testimony is expected to last several weeks.

* Financial Times