By David Brunnstrom

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) - Charles Taylor will get hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal aid to defend charges of war crimes in Sierra Leone, despite suspicions he is hiding huge personal wealth, a court official said on Tuesday.

The former Liberian president faces 11 charges at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, including instigating murder rape and terrorism, in a quest for diamonds in the West African country during its 1991-2002 civil war.

Taylor made a surprise appearance at the court in the Hague on Tuesday, having refused to show up twice previously arguing he had inadequate funds to mount a proper defence.

Acting registrar of the court Herman von Hebel, responsible for meeting a judicial order to ensure Taylor had funds for his defence, said he had gone further than it had demanded to ensure the trial could proceed as soon as possible.

"The court will provide a lump sum of roughly $70,000 on a monthly basis to a defence team -- a lead council, two co-counsel and two legal assistants," he told Reuters.

"We will provide an additional investigator to him, we will provide two additional temporary assistants in order to familirise the counsel as quickly as possible with the case. We will provide additional resources for expert advice."

Von Hebel said he was following with keen interest efforts by U.N. experts to discover the location of Taylor's suspected wealth, but added: "As long as we don't have clear proof of his resources we simply have to provide the resources to him."

APPEAL FOR FUNDS

Von Hebel was in Brussels with the president of the court, Justice George Gelaga King, to lobby EU governments for funds to support the Sierra Leone trials, which are expected to cost $89 million and currently face a shortfall of $60 million.

King said Taylor's trial could last 12-18 months. This could mean a legal aid bill for him alone of more than $1.2 million.

The Special Court was set up by Sierra Leone's government and the United Nations in 2002 to try those deemed most responsible for human rights violations in the civil war.

Taylor's trial is being held in The Hague because of fears it could spur instability if held in Sierra Leone, but this has added significantly to the costs.

Judge Julia Sebutinde last week criticised the court registry for failing to have stand-in legal representation for Taylor in place for a hearing on June 25.

She said the registry's focus had been on working within budgetary constraints and the issue had wrongly boiled down to finances rather than fair-trial issues.

King said it was now time to get on with the trial.

"I think the fact that Charles Taylor appears today shows that he himself realised that the judges have made an order in his own interest," he said. "He has all these facilitis now so there is in fact no excuse for him not to go to court."

King said the court budget was a fraction of those for tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and its appeal for funds should be sympathetically considered.

"We have set a precedent that these ad hoc tribunals can work and will cut down expense," he said. "What we have spent in five years is probably what they have spent in one."

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