DEFENCE WITNESS TESTIFIES ON ALLEGED CRIME SCENES

Arusha, October 10th, 2002 (FH) - The defence team for Lt. Samuel Imanishimwe, former commander of Karambo military in South West Rwanda on Thursday day presented to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) a series of videos, pictures and sketches of crime scenes alleged by the prosecution.

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After a prosecution objection to the witness giving opinion on the images and the pictures, the chamber ruled in favor of the defence. Defence witness Edouard Esono of Cameroon took the videos and the pictures early this year. He is a legal assistant in the defence team of Imanishimwe. With the aid of pictures and videos Esono, among others, argued that an area described by prosecution witnesses as a hiding spot during the genocide was a “sparsely forested eucalyptus field” that couldn’t have hidden “even a chicken. ” He also challenged several other physical elements in the testimony of prosecution witnesses. Prior to Esono taking the stand, a prosecution witness only identified as ‘PNE’ to protect his identity denied prosecution allegations that Karambo camp had been used as a torture camp during the genocide. “I never saw any civilians get tortured in the camp. Never”, said the witness who said he was a former soldier in Imanishimwe’s camp. He also denied allegations by prosecution witnesses that Imanishimwe had distributed weapons to ethnic Hutu civilians to kill Tutsis in the genocide. “That wasn’t possible”, he said, before adding, “we ourselves(soldiers) didn’t have enough bullets. ”Esono will continue his testimony on Monday. The trial is before ICTR's Trial Chamber Three, composed of judges Lloyd George Williams of St. Kitts and Nevis (presiding), Yakov Ostrovsky of Russia and Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia. GG/FH(CY-1010e)