DOCTOR HUNTED AND KILLED TUTSI REFUGEES, SAYS WITNESS

Arusha, September 28, 2001 (FH) - A genocide survivor told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Friday that medical doctor Gerard Ntakirutimana hunted for and killed Tutsi refugees in Bisesero hills (Kibuye province, western Rwanda) during the genocide. Gerard Ntakirutimana is being tried with his father Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana.

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At the time of the genocide, Gerard was a doctor at the Mugonero Seventh Day Adventist mission hospital in Kibuye. His father was pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist church that lay in the same complex. The two have pleaded not guilty to five counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Witness FF, named as such to protect her identity, told the court that Gerard, accompanied by Interahamwe (extremist Hutu militia), had pursued and killed Tutsi refugees at Murambi, Gitwe, Kidashya, and Mutiti hills in Bisesero. FF, a Tutsi woman, said she had been an employee of Mugonero Hospital until she fled at the peak of the genocide. She said she had sustained serious injuries on her head and her hands during an attack on the hospital on April 16th, 1994. The witness said she was still haunted by frequent headaches and her fingers had been permanently crippled. Doctor mistreated Tutsi patientsWitness FF also told the court that on April 15th, 1994, a day before the attack on the hospital complex, Doctor Ntakirutimana, accompanied by the hospital chief of personnel, visited the hospital and "discharged Hutu patients and gave them medicine to take home with them". The remaining Tutsi patients, FF added, were crowded into one wing of the hospital. The following day, she said, government soldiers and Interahamwe attacked and killed the patients and other Tutsi refugees in the hospital, the chapel and other buildings in the Mugonero Seventh Day Adventist mission. The witness said that among the vehicles that ferried the attackers to the complex was Elizaphan's truck and a truck used by Gerard. Some 5,000 Tutsis were killed in this attack, according to the prosecution. Meanwhile, Elizaphan's lawyer, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark submitted to the court a motion requesting the dismissal of a protected prosecution witness intending to testify next week. Clark argued that the witness had, during re-confirmation of his testimony, brought up new charges against Elizaphan that had not been included in the indictment. "You can't permit such gross unfairness," Clark told the court. Prosecutor Charles Philips (Nigeria/UK) objected, saying that the witness had not testified to "new information" but rather "additional information". The court is expected to deliver its ruling next week. The case is before Trial Chamber One of the ICTR, composed of judges Erik Mose of Norway (presiding), Navanethem Pillay of South Africa and new judge Andrésia Vaz of Senegal. GG/JC/PHD/NK0928e)