DEPOSITION ALLOWED AND EXPERT WITNESS CONTINUES TESTIMONY

Arusha, July 16, 2002 (FH) - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday allowed the defence of former Rwandan Minister André Ntagerura one of three accused in the Cyangugu trial to proceed with the deposition of a protected witness "K1H" out of court. ICTR's Trial Chamber Three said it would grant the defence motion to a limited extent because it appeared the witness was important to the defence case.

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The deposition will be taken at The Hague, at the International Criminal Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia (ICTY) before the ICTR's Chief of Chamber Support Services who will serve as the presiding officer. The ICTR also said that only one defence counsel and one prosecutor would be present during K1H's testimony and that the ICTR Registry would collaborate with the presiding officer for purposes of taking the deposition. The deposition is to be heard by July 30th, and other aspects of the motion, the court added, were denied. Ntagerura, a former minister for Transport and Communications is co-accused with ex- commander of the Karambo military barracks in Cyangugu Samuel Imanishimwe and former Cyangugu prefect Emmanuel Bagambiki. Prosecution maintains that all three are guilty of massacres of Tutsis in Cyangugu, southwest of Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide. They have pleaded not guilty. In the meantime, before the same Chamber Three, an expert witness, ethno-psychiatrist, Lucien Hounkpatin of Benin and France continues his evidence in defence of Ntagerura. Hounkpatin a professor at the Université de Paris VIII Saint- Denis in France, is the thirty-second defence witness for Ntagerura. After his testimony, witness K1H and Ntagerura are set to give evidence before his defence can close its case and his co-accused can start their cases. Hounkpatin told the court that the acts, which sparked off the crisis in Rwanda, may have been caused by "repetitive trauma that does not allow healing". According to the witness, the situation in Rwanda is one where there is "fear of the other" and one can always expect new anguish. The witness reiterated that that collective psychosis and collective hysteria contributed to the 1994 events. He also spoke of myths and a culture of antagonism within the Rwandan society and that "each party could go back to the myth and reconstruct it for its own use. ""It was hard to find a third-party mediator since there wasn't an internal mediator," Hounkpatin told the court. During cross-questioning by Prosecutor Richard Karegyesa of Uganda, he denied that in his analysis on the Rwandan situation, he had taken sides with either party and said that he was neutral. Karegyesa put it to the witness that the crisis in Rwanda was not spontaneous and that it was a carefully planned and efficiently executed criminal enterprise. The witness continues his testimony on Wednesday morning, 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. SW/FH (CY-0716e)