He denied that he had ever eaten human flesh but did not dispute that there were some cannibals in Liberia during its civil war.
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Click to view image: '89e8a81b263e-001.jpg'Former Liberian president Charles Taylor ordered his troops to kill and eat other human beings, a witness at his war crimes trial said.

Joseph "ZigZag" Marzah, who claims he was Taylor's former death squad commander, detailed the gruesome cannibalism he said the warlord demanded during the 1990s.

"Hesaid we should eat them. Even the UN white people - he said we could use them as pork to eat," Marzah said.

When he was quizzed on how you go about preparing people to eat, he replied: "We slit your throat, butcher you ... throw away the head, take the flesh and put it in a pot ... Charles Taylor knows that."

He also testified that he could not remember how many people he had killed, as the number was so large, and under orders he had even slit the bellies of pregnant women.

Taylor's defence contended that Marzah was a liar and questioned whether he had done a deal with prosecutors for his testimony.

The former west African leader, accused of rape, murder, mutilation and the recruitment of child soldiers, is being tried at a UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone at The Hague. He has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors allege Taylor armed rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone in order to ransack the country's diamond mines and create instability in the government.

Marzah previously told the court how he had entered Sierra Leone armed and returned to Liberia with diamonds he presented to Taylor.

During 1991-2000, conflicts engulfed Liberia and Sierra Leone in which more than 250,000 people died.

Horrendous stories of children having their limbs cut off by drug-fuelled militia also emerged.

A warrant for Taylor's arrest was issued in June 2003, but he was able to evade international authorities until March 2006.

His trial originally began in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, but was moved to The Hague over fears it would create security problems.