PROSECUTION CALLS ITS LAST WITNESS

Arusha, September 29, 2003(FH) - The prosecution in the trial of former Rwandan Minister for Finance Emmanuel Ndindabahizi on Monday presented its last witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Ndindabahizi 53, is charged with three counts including genocide and crimes against humanity (extermination and murder).

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He allegedly perpetrated massacres of Tutsi civilians in his home prefecture of Kibuye, western RwandaThe fifteenth prosecution witness said Ndindabahizi questioned why Tutsis were not being killed at a road block mounted in Gitesi Commune. The witness named CGC to keep his identity secret heard the suspect making the remarks on May 20th 1994 at a roadblock in a place called Gaseke. Ndindabahizi asked the Hutus manning the roadblock, why they were not killing Tutsis and why they were allowing them to pass. CGC whose mother is Hutu and father Tutsi and currently a detainee in Rwanda, added that the suspect had also brought some machetes in a vehicle. The driver offloaded the weapons and after Ndindabahizi's departure, they were taken to makeshift structures below the road, belonging to those who were manning the roadblock, the witness stated. Ndindabahizi also took some money from his jacket and gave it to the twenty people manning the roadblock. The witness however, said he did not know why he gave the cash to those people. Soon after Ndindabahizi left the roadblock, CGC said a Tutsi called Nturusu was killed. Asked by the prosecutor Charles Adeogun-Phillips (Nigeria) why the Hutus were manning the roadblock he replied, "to ensure that Tutsis who were considered an enemy did not escape. CGC testified that he had been taken from the bush where he was hiding and escorted to the roadblock by some Hutus where he was to be killed when he saw Ndindabahizi. He was taken to the roadblock because he had promised to give his attackers 30,000 Francs at the roadblock. The witness was saved from the killing by an influential person whom he described as someone he looked upon as his father. Ndindabahizi's lead counsel Pascal Besnier (France) asked the witness in cross-examination why he had stated to the investigators that Nturusu was murdered in his presence but in his oral evidence he said he had left the roadblock when Nturusu was killed. CGC insisted that the investigators could have misquoted him during the interview. Earlier when the chamber began sitting, it rejected a prosecution witness whose details were not disclosed to the defence until September 23, 2003