Former Liberian President Charles Taylor clashed with a war crimes trial attorney Tuesday just minutes after she began cross examining him about his repeated denials of responsibility for atrocities by rebels during Sierra Leone's brutal civil war.

Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone finally got their chance Tuesday to question Taylor. He spent 13 weeks as a witness in his own defense, rejecting allegations that, from his presidential mansion in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, he armed, trained and commanded rebels who murdered and mutilated thousands of civilians during the 1992-2002 conflict.

The prosecution's American trial attorney, Brenda Hollis, immediately drew an angry response from Taylor when she accused him of trying to evade one of her questions.

"I am answering your question," Taylor snapped at her.

"No, you're not," Hollis shot back.

Presiding judge Richard Lussick then intervened, telling Taylor to "just answer counsel's questions."

The cross-examination lasted just over a half hour before the trial adjourned for the day. But that was time enough for Hollis to outline prosecutors' view that Taylor's denials of responsibility are false, as is his claim that most of the 91 witnesses who testified against him were lying.

Prosecutors called to the stand victims of rebel atrocities and former members of Taylor's inner circle to back up their 11 charges against him, including murder, rape, sexual enslavement and recruiting child soldiers.

"Mr. Taylor, it's true, isn't it, that of all the people who have come before these judges you are the one who has the most reason to lie?" Hollis asked.

Earlier, as he wrapped up his own testimony, Taylor claimed he was indicted for war crimes as part of a U.S. "regime change" plan to gain control of West African oil reserves and questioned the fairness of his trial, telling judges, "I am convicted already."

Taylor has frequently hit out at the United States in sometimes venomous monologues, accusing the country of seeking to overthrow him and of hypocrisy on human rights.

Taylor's epic testimony _ more than 250 hours on the stand _ chronologically reviewed his life, from his mixed parentage and boyhood in Liberia to university in the United States, his leadership of a Liberian rebel movement, presidency and _ in his version _ peace-seeking West African leader.

On Tuesday, Taylor told the three-judge panel Tuesday that Americans believed he was a destabilizing factor in West Africa, a region Washington saw as a possible future source of oil.

Taylor said the U.S. stand was that "we cannot have anyone in Liberia that we don't think is going to dance to our tune."

The American prosecutor for the special tribunal who indicted Taylor, David Crane, rejected his claim. Continued...