ARUSHA - The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has said it has enough evidence to sustain a case against embattled lawyer Léonidas Nshogoza.

Nshogoza, a former investigator in the Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda case at ICTR is on trial at the Tanzanian based tribunal for allegedly trying to bribe a witness to give false testimony before the court.

During one of the appearances of the protected witnesses, Senior Trial Attorney, Paul Ng’arua said that the prosecution will show that Nshogoza launched a wide campaign to pervert the course of justice in the case of Kamuhanda, a former Minister accused and convicted of Genocide.

N’garua said that the campaign started as early as August 2003, before the judgment was rendered in the Kamuhanda case, and continued after the latter’s conviction and sentence. 
He said that Nshogoza’s campaign targeted in particular protected prosecution witnesses, with code-names; GAA, GAF, GEI, GEX as well as witnesses SP-004 and potential witnesses BUC, NYA and SP-003.

"The prosecution will show that the accused held several meetings with GAA, GEX and BUX and procured signatures to false statements. During those meetings, he coerced witnesses with food, drinks and money,” N’garua said. 

Kamuhanda, a close relative to the accused, was convicted for Genocide for his direct participation in the massacres of Tutsi refugees at the Gikomero parish compound in Kigali. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

According to the prosecution, Nshogoza met the witnesses in public places such as Stella Bar in Remera and Kimihurura. Meanwhile, two more witnesses, SP-003 and SP-004 yesterday testified to the UN court that witness GAA lured them into accepting to give false testimony in return for a huge sum of money.

"GAA came up to me and told me that there is a man who works at ICTR who wants me to rescue Kamuhanda. I later came to know that the person was Nshogoza and that he would give a lot of money, more than one million Rwandan francs,” SP-003, one of witnesses said.

Prosecution has since the beginning of this week been parading its witnesses before the Trial Chamber to pin Nshogoza.

The accused surrendered to the UN court in Arusha, Tanzania in February 2008. He was immediately placed under ICTR custody.

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