Though Taylor had rejected complicity on any of the charges, the court said that he ordered and supported the RUF, while the prosecution said that RUF's undermining of a 1999 ceasefire prolonged the war and was financed by Taylor through the proceeds of illegally mined "blood diamonds." In reaction to the verdict, Richard Dekker, the head of the international justice programme at Human Rights Watch said: "The Taylor verdict is a watershed moment, however it turns out. As president, Taylor is believed to have been responsible for so much murder and mayhem which unfolded in Sierra Leone. His was a shadow that loomed across the region". Christine Cheng of Exeter College, Oxford pointed to the politicisation of the trial and the degree to which the trial has been funded by Western states, though she added that the conclusion of Taylor's trial represented a "milestone for the pursuit of international justice." The prosecutor Brenda J. Hollis reacted to the verdict in saying: