24.03.10 - ICTR/BAGARAGAZA - PROMINENT ICTR INMATE SCARED TO BE WITH OTHER DETAINEES

24 March 2010 By

JusticeInfo.net

Arusha, March 24, 2010 (FH) - The former head of the Rwandan Tea Authority, Michel Bagaragaza, who was sentenced on November 5, 2009, to 8 years in jail by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) after pleading guilty for his role in the 1994 genocide, is scared of sharing his quarters with other ICTR detainees.

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According to the ICTR spokesperson Roland Amoussouga, this former friend of President Juvénal Habyarimana is still held in the UN detention facility in Arusha, "but in an area that is isolated from other inmates".

ICTR is used to separate convicts who confessed their crimes from other detainees, some of whom deny the very occurrence of genocide in Rwanda.

Bagaragaza invokes special reasons to fear for his security. He has testified against several prominent personalities of the previous regime who were charged by the ICTR, notably Protais Zigiranyirazo.

However, his testimony as a "key witness" of the Prosecution in Zigiranyirazo's case did not, in the end, convince the judges: Habyarimana's brother-in-law was acquitted on appeal in November 2009.

Protais Zigiranyirazo is now living in a "secured house" somewhere in Arusha waiting for a host country to accept him. Michel Bagaragaza seems to feel, likewise, unsafe.

ER/GF