18.01.07 -ICTR/MEDIAS THE APPEALS CHAMBER REJECTS THE ADMISSION OF BRUGUIERE’S REPORT IN MEDIA TRIAL

ICTR/MEDIAS - THE APPEALS CHAMBER REJECTS THE ADMISSION OF BRUGUIERE’S REPORT IN MEDIA TRIALArusha, January 18 2007 (FH) – The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has ruled out the admission of the report conducted by the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière as an evidence in the Media trial; the judges consider it as not « relevant » in this case, an official source has reported. The request had been filed on December 14 by two of the accused: Mr. Ferdinand Nahimana and Mr. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza. The two men, founders of the Thousand Hills Independent Radio and Television (RTLM) had put forward the fact that the document was released last November while their own trial had closed in 2003. The Chamber answered their request on January 12th. According to the judges, Judge Bruguière’s investigation is not relevant in the Media trial, the case of the three directors of Rwandan media accused of having aired and published incitements to commit genocide and of having facilitated the massacres. Before the court of First Instance, two of them were sentenced to life imprisonment while the third one received only thirty-five years because of procedural defects. Judge Bruguière’s report which concludes in the participation of the RPF and of the sitting President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, in the attack against the plane of the president Juvénal Habyarimana, has already been admitted as evidence by the ICTR in Militaries I, the trial of the highest ranking Rwandan militaries at the time of the genocide in 1994. PB/MG © Hirondelle News Agency