\u00a0\u201cSeemingly hopeless battles are the finest ones,\u201d lawyer Rapha\u00ebl Constant told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) one day as he was arguing a defence motion for his client Th\u00e9oneste Bagosora, who was portrayed as the \u201cmastermind\u201d behind the Rwandan genocide. So at the end of a legal battle lasting several years, this lawyer from Martinique was relatively satisfied when Bagosora was convicted in effect only for \u201comissions\u201d. Bagosora also escaped a life sentence, the maximum penalty at the UN\u2019s ICTR which\u00a0 closes its doors this December.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
How did Constant come to be Bagosora\u2019s lawyer? \u201cI was contacted by the Colonel\u2019s son-in-law who was living at the time in Switzerland and is now in the United States,\u201d he recounts. Constant, who is president of the Fort-de-France Bar, remembers that his decision caused him a few problems. \u201cI received some threats,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were also people close to me who didn\u2019t understand, and only did so after long discussions.\u201d He stresses, however, that his job was to \u201cdefend a man, Colonel Bagosora and not French policy in Rwanda\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Hutu President Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana\u2019s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994 triggering the anti-Tutsi genocide, retired officer Bagosora was Cabinet Secretary to the Defence Minister. With the minister on mission abroad, Bagosora took a certain number of initiatives. Defence Minister Augustin Bizimana returned to Rwanda three days after Habyarimana\u2019s assassination and an interim government was set up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bagosora, who went into exile like other members of this government, was arrested in Cameroon on March 9, 1996 and transferred to the ICTR Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania on January 23, 1997.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The flagship trial in which he appeared with three other top Rwandan military officials, opened on April 2, 2002. The four men were charged with conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (including extermination and rape) and war crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The prosecution alleged that from the end of 1990 to July 1994, Th\u00e9oneste Bagosora and others conspired to draw up a \u201cMachiavellian plan\u201d to exterminate the Tutsi population and opposition members so as to keep power. This plan, according to the prosecution, included incitement to ethnic hatred and violence, training and arms distribution to militias and drawing up lists of people to be eliminated. They were alleged to have ordered and participated in massacres of Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutus. Specifically with regard to Bagosora, the prosecution alleged that after Habyarimana\u2019s plane was shot down on April 6 he took \u201cde facto\u201d charge of political and military affairs in Rwanda.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The much-awaited judgment came on December 18, 2008. \u00a0Bagosora and two of his co-accused were convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. They were, however, acquitted of conspiracy to commit genocide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Constant expressed disappointment but noted nevertheless that the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide had not been retained by the Court. \u201cWhat is important is that this puts into question the whole history of what happened in Rwanda,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Trial Chamber accepted the Prosecutor\u2019s arguments that Bagosora effectively commanded the Rwandan army in the three days after the April 6 attack on Habyarimana\u2019s plane. It also found that Bagosora bore responsibility in the April 7 assassination by members of the Rwandan army of Prime Minister<\/p>\n
Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was perceived by extremist members of the Hutu regime to be too moderate. It also found he played a part in targeted murders of political personalities, of 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers assassinated in a Kigali military camp on April 7 and massacres of Tutsis at roadblocks in Kigali and his native region of Gisenyi, in northwest Rwanda. For such grave crimes, only a life sentence was possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it was still a partial victory for the defence, according to Rapha\u00ebl Constant. \u201cNo conviction for planning,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, out of the 60 or so facts held against him in the indictment or by witnesses, the Tribunal only convicted him for a tiny part, concentrated over three days.\u201d But Constant and his client did not stop there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On May 8, 2012, the ICTR Appeals Chamber confirmed Bagosora\u2019s conviction for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, but they overruled several of the Trial Chamber\u2019s factual findings and reduced his sentence to 35 years. In the end he was found guilty only for having failed to prevent crimes committed by members of the military and not having punished them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Appeals judges confirmed Bagosora\u2019s guilt by default,\u201d says Constant. \u201cI think the myth that he was the `mastermind` behind the genocide has been debunked and that the judges retained only what they were able to.\u201d He also believes that \u201cacquitting Bagosora would have been impossible\u201d because \u201cthe ICTR has never been independent of political considerations\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bagosora, now 74, has been imprisoned in Bamako, Mali, since July 2012, under an agreement between Mali and the UN. \u201cI don\u2019t have much contact with the Colonel,\u201d says Constant. \u201cMaybe I will go and see him when my presidency of the Bar ends in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\u201cSeemingly hopeless battles are the finest ones,\u201d lawyer Rapha\u00ebl Constant told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) one day as he was arguing a defence motion for his client Th\u00e9oneste Bagosora, who was portrayed as the \u201cmastermind\u201d behind the Rwandan genocide. So at the end of a legal battle lasting several years, this lawyer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":63644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2431],"class_list":["post-25026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ictr","ji_location-rwanda"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n