12.03.12 - ICTR/NGIRABATWARE - PROSECUTION WITNESS GIVES CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE

12 March 2012 By

Arusha, March 12, 2012 (FH) - A prosecution witness on Monday admitted he had received an audio interview of ex-Rwandan Planning Minister Augustin Ngirabatware done in Senegal on May 4, 1994, with Radio France Internationale. The witness, Massamba Ndiaye, had previously testified refuting Ngirabatware's claim that he was out of Rwanda between April 30 and May 5, 1994, when he is accused of committing crimes.

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Ndiaye is a Crime Analyst within the office of the Prosecutor at the ICTR. On March 6 he testified as the first of eight supplementary witnesses brought by the prosecution to refute Ngirabatware's defence of alibi.

However, under cross questioning by the defence on Monday, he said he had received the audio recording in an E-mail from RFI officials. Responding to a question from Ngirabatware's lead counsel Mylene Dmitri he said: "Yes, it says Augustin Ngirabatware was interviewed in Dakar. This is what was confirmed in my E-mail."

Dmitri further showed Ndiaye an article published by Pan-African News Agency on May 2, 1994, indicating that Ngirabatware was in Dakar to deliver a message from the Rwandan president at the time to his Senegalese counterpart on the situation in Rwanda. "That is what is written," the witness responded. "He was in Dakar. He came to deliver the message."

The trial continues on Tuesday. Ngirabatware is charged with conspiracy to commit genocide; genocide or, in the alternative, complicity in genocide; direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and extermination and rape as crimes against humanity.

FK/JC/GF