British supermodel Naomi Campbell's subpoena by the International Crimes Court, to testify in former Liberian President Charles Taylor's war crimes trial is nothing but a "publicity stunt," the ex-dictator's defense attorney said.

Prosecutors allege that Taylor gifted Campbell with a blood diamonds during a reception in South Africa in 1997.

Taylor's defense lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, is trying to quash the subpoena. He called

the evidence "tangential to the real issues" against the former Liberian president and added that it was too late to introduce it to the trial 15 months after they closed their case.

"For the prosecution to present such inferential evidence at this advanced stage, as part of an obvious publicity stunt, would bring the administration of justice into serious disrepute," Griffiths wrote to judges.

Campbell informed the ICC, through her lawyer, that she did not want to testify about an alleged gift of diamonds that Taylor gave her.

According to prosecutors, Campbell's testimony would provide "direct evidence of the accused's possession of rough diamonds from a witness unrelated to the Liberian or Sierra Leone conflicts."

Taylor is charged with 11 counts of counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers and terrorism in his role backing rebels in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, where an estimated 500,000 people allegedly were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities.