08.02.07 - ICTR/RWAMAKUBA - APOLOGY PROVIDED BUT FINANCIAL COMPENSATION DENIED FOR NOW

Arusha, February 8th 2007 (FH) - The Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) a trial chamber ordered last week to provide an acquitted former minister with an apology and a financial compensation has partially fulfilled the obligation.André Rwamakuba has not yet received the amount of 2,000 US dollars for the moral injury sustained as the result of the violation of this rights to legal assistance during his initial months of his detention from 22October 1998 until 10 March 1999.It is the first time the Tribunal has ever issued such an order.« The Registrar has sent Dr Rwamakuba a formal letter of excuse », the ICTR spokesman, Everard O'Donnell (UK) has declared Thursday during a press conference.However, he has also noted that the Registrar was currently seeking legal advice to determine what to do with the second part of the order. He himself acknowledges that nowhere in the Rules of procedures of the ICTR is it written that the Registrar can appeal the decisions of the chamber.« We hope that this decision will be reviewed in one way or another by the Appeals Chamber », O'Donnell has declared, suggesting that the case might be debated in New York during the United Nations’ general assembly.O'Donnell, who is under the responsibility of the Registry, has often explained there is no line in the ICTR budget for this financial compensation.The former Minister Rwamakuba has been tried for genocide and crimes against humanity; he was acquitted last September. The prosecutor has decided not to appeal.The ex-minister had boycotted his own trial, alleging that the prosecutor’s indictment against him was unjust.Even on the day the judges pronounced his acquittal, he did not appear in court.The judgment referred clearly to the fact that the ex-minister was at liberty to file an application seeking an appropriate remedy for the violation of his right to legal assistance during the said period.Rwamakuba has two housemates, the ex-minister André Ntagerura and the former prefect of Cyangugu (south-west), Emmanuel Bagambiki.The tribunal keeps searching asylum countries for them. The judges have ordered the Registrar to “use all available means to seek the good offices of the state where Rwamakuba’s family is present to facilitate sometemporary status for him in that state (Switzerland) and to seek good offices of that state to ensure the uninterrupted schooling of his children.”ER/AT/MG© Hirondelle Agency