Sweating through the August doldrums, the media received a rare gift: supermodel Naomi Campbell would testify in the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. After three years in relative obscurity, the trial was suddenly all over the news.

This neglect would be much easier to forgive if an irresistible hook like Naomi Campbell was used to lure readers into considering the complexities of the trial. Instead, most of the reporting is content to skim across its surface.

Few of those stories really make it clear that Taylor is not being tried by the International Criminal Court, but rather by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Special Court is a hybrid tribunal established by treaty between Sierra Leone and the United Nations, with the mandate of bringing to justice those “bearing the greatest responsibility” for the small West African country’s decade-long civil war.

Taylor, then, isn’t being tried for any crimes in his native Liberia, but rather for his alleged support for the Revolutionary United Front, the rebel group that terrorized Sierra Leone for a decade. Taylor allegedly traded arms to the RUF for diamonds, and diamonds to Naomi Campbell for conversation.

Much to the disappointment of the press, the supermodel made it through her testimony without hurling a phone at the help. Whether out of fear for her family or her reputation, she refused to directly connect Taylor to the diamonds, denying that he’d delivered or even promised her those “dirty-looking stones.”

Experts on the Special Court and the history of the conflict think that Campbell’s evidence was less than “highly probative,” as had been hoped.

Campell’s testimony actually literally interrupted that of defense witness Issa Sesay, the former interim leader of the RUF, who the Special Court sentenced to 52 years in prison. Sesay is the highest ranking official from any faction to take the stand in Taylor's trial. However historically unusual, this isn’t the sort of hook that racks up pageviews. Nor was what Sesay had to say: that Taylor had nothing to do with arming and supporting the RUF.

There are no receipts for those alleged diamond deals; in the end, the judges will have to weigh the credibility of the war criminals who got caught against those who didn’t.

The afternoon after Campbell’s turn before the cameras, Sesay returned to the stand. When the trial resumed, the public gallery appeared to be nearly empty.

Nicholas Jahr is a contributor to The Nation magazine.