\nArusha, March 3rd 2003 (FH) - The trial of three media personalities accused of using the media to encourage ethnic tensions and later on fan the genocide, resumed Monday in Trial Chamber One of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The socalled \"media trial\" had been adjourned January 31, 2003 to allow the chamber to deliberate on the judgement in the trial of SeventhDay Adventist pastor, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and his son, Dr.\n<\/p>\n
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\nGerard Ntakirutimana. Both were found guilty and sentenced February 19, 2003. Hassan Ngeze,41, former owner and editor of the Kinyarwanda newspaper, \"Kangura\", is standing trial jointly with former politician and boardmember of Radio t\u00e9l\u00e9vision libre de milles collines (RTLM), 52 yearold Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, and Ferdinand Nahimana, 52, a former head of the stateowned media parastatal, ORINFOR. A defence witness only known as \"BAZ 19\" for the sake of keeping his identity secret, told the court that Hassan Ngeze, had smuggled Tutsis in old disused tin drums and taken them across the border into former Zaire. The witness added that because of those deeds, Ngeze had been arrested at least five times in July, 1994. The witness said that he had been driving around with Ngeze during the genocide, and that he was present when the Tutsis were being smuggled in the drums. He also denied that Ngeze had at any time been armed during the events. \"He was not armed, not even with a stick\" said witness \"BAZ 19\", saying that Hassan Ngeze was a pacifist. But Steve Rapp, head of the prosecution team in the trial, read a transcript of a program on RTLM in which the accused was calling upon Hutu Militia not to kill people simply because of their looks as they might unintentionally kill their own brothers. The prosecutor translated the statement by the accused as an attempt to protect Hutus who might be inadvertently killed simply because of their resemblance to Tutsi. Ngeze locked horns with bench on several occasions, when he interrupted the proceedings asking judge Pillay to receive his motion. The judge had to warn Ngeze on two occasions to respect court procedures, and told him that if he failed to abide, he would be thrown out of court. Another protected witness going by the code name RM116, claimed that she had been among those saved by Ngeze and evacuated to Zaire. She narrated how a family friend had taken her onemonth baby, two young men and herself to Ngeze's house in Gisenyi, and how they were smuggled in tin drums to Goma. Hassan Ngeze is represented by the American John Floyd, and Ren\u00e9 Martel form Canada. Of the three accused, only Nahimana and Ngeze were present in court. Jean Bosco Barayagwiza continues to boycott the proceedings, saying that the ICTR is manipulated by the Rwandan government. Trial Chamber Three resumed without the presence of one of the three judges. Norwegian Eric M\u00f8se had to travel on urgent business and could not make it in time for the resumption of the trial. Judges Navanethem Pillay of South Africa (presiding) and Asoka de Zoysa Gunawardana of Sri Lanka conducted the session. KN\/CE\/FH(ME'0303e)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, March 3rd 2003 (FH) - The trial of three media personalities accused of using the media to encourage ethnic tensions and later on fan the genocide, resumed Monday in Trial Chamber One of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The socalled \"media trial\" had been adjourned January 31, 2003 to allow the chamber to […]<\/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-17428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n