\nArusha, November 8th, 2002 (FH) - The prosecution has placed a request with the chamber asking for a time limit in the cross examination of American historian and human rights activist, Alison Des Forges, an expert witness in the trial of four senior military officers of the Rwandan Armed Forces at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The \u2018Military Trial\u2019 comprises the former director of the cabinet at the Ministry of Defence, colonel Th\u00e9oneste Bagosora; the former head of military operations for the army, brigadier general Gratien Kabiligi, former commandant of the military region of Gisenyi (western Rwanda); lieutenant colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva; along with the former commandant of the para-commando battalion of Kigali major Aloys Ntabakuze.\n<\/p>\n
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\nThey are principally accused of intent to commit genocide and war crimes. They have pleaded not guilty. The trial was suspended on 26 September when the defence for Kabiligi was about to start his cross examination of Des Forges. The expert had just spent a week being cross-questioned by Rapha\u00ebl Constant, the lawyer for Bagosora. When the trial restarts on 18 November, the prosecution is calling for the expert witness to finish her testimony on 22 November, and failing that, the defence continue \u201cby deposition\u201d. The process involves putting written questions to a witness and receiveing answers in the same form. The defence teams of the other three accused would therefore have only five days for cross questioning. In support of his request, the prosecutor mentions \u201cthe principle of equality of arms\u201d, arguing that the time given to the prosecution for its questioning should be the same as that allocated the defence for cross examination. In its request, the prosecution refers to the long legal discussions that characterised the court sessions before the expert witness began giving her evidence, the numerous defence objections as the witness was questioned and the time taken for cross questioning by Bagosora\u2019s defence counsel. The accusation concludes that with this slow rhythm, \u201cthis trial cannot finish before the end of the mandate of the tribunal set for 2008\u201d. Reactions from the judges during the cross-questioning by ConstantDuring the first cross questioning of Des Forges by defence lawyer Constant, the president of the chamber judge George Lloyd Williams had called the Martinique lawyer to order many times, asking him to take into account time factors. Mr Constant was lingering in effect a long time on questions concerning the Rwandan monarchy and the 1959 revolution. \u201cYou should keep in mind that three other lawyers are following you,\u201d the judge warned him. After six days of cross questioning the chamber asked the lawyer to wrap up quickly, even though the defence clearly had not yet exhausted all its questions. Previously the chamber had observed that the debates were going \u201cat a snail\u2019s pace\u201d. \u201c\u2018We have been bogged down since the beginning,\u201d Judge Williams had commented resignedly, suggesting that \u201dthe burden of proof falls on the prosecutor \u201c and not the defence. Defence reacts to the prosecutor\u2019s requestAll the defence teams have rejected the prosecutor\u2019s request, arguing that if the \u2018military trial\u2019 is dragging slowly, \u201cit is the prosecutor\u2019s responsibility and not the defence\u201d. According to the lawyers, it was the prosecution itself that asked for the cases to be joined together, meaning a joint trial of four co-accused. \u201cThey have to take the consequences,\u201d emphasised the Canadian lawyer for Ntabakuze, Andr\u00e9 Tremblay, citing one of the articles of procedure: \u201cwhen cases are joined, each one of the accused enjoys the same rights as he would have if judged separately. \u201dOn the same subject, the French\/Togolese lawyer for Kabiligi, Jean Yaovi Degli, asked the chamber to separate his client\u2019s trial from the others. \u201cThe current joint procedure is seriously prejudicial to the rights of General Kabiligi,\u201d he asserts, reproving the prosecution for wanting to continue with a \u201ctrial of ambush\u201d and \u201cto reduce to nearly nothing the right of the accused to defend himself normally. \u201dTremblay emphases as well that; \u201cit would be unfair for cross questioning to be done by deposition [\u2026] when the evidence had previously been given by live voice\u201d. He points out how that contradicts the prosecutor\u2019s own suggestion \u201cwho bases his request on the principle of equality of arms and parity. \u201dThe defence recalls that it had, in vain, been opposed to the introduction of a multitude of documents in support of the expert witness report, because \u201cthe witness was not competent to introduce most of these documents\u201d. \u201cThe defence was obliged to cross question the witness (to test her credibility)\u201d, empathised Tremblay. The lawyers also condemn the fact that the prosecutor had chosen to cite an expert without having put the factual base into the dossier, which, according to them, considerably complicated the discussions. Therefore, the defence of Nsengiyumva describes the prosecution\u2019s request as \u201can abuse of procedure\u201d. \u201dThe witness stood in court longer than expected because of the prosecutor\u2019s bad planning,\u201d state the Kenyan lawyers Kennedy Ogetto and Gershom O. Bw'Omanwa. They are astonished that the prosecutor was asking for a limitation on the rights of the accused after having completed his questioning, and described his intervention as \u201cmalicious\u201d. They think that to suggest that the chamber should take measures that are not the same for each party \u201cwas close to insulting the Tribunal\u201d. The judges will have to pronounce on this request when the trial restarts, which is seen as the most important trial that the ICTR has dealt with to date. The trial is being held before of the Third Chamber of the Tribunal, comprising Judge George Williams of St-Kitts and Nevis (presiding), Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia and Andr\u00e9sie Vaz of Senegal. JA\/GA\/CE\/FH (ML-1108E)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, November 8th, 2002 (FH) - The prosecution has placed a request with the chamber asking for a time limit in the cross examination of American historian and human rights activist, Alison Des Forges, an expert witness in the trial of four senior military officers of the Rwandan Armed Forces at the International Criminal Tribunal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-16723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n