Rights body accuses ICTR staff of intimidating witnesses

Human rights watchdog, African Rights (AU) has protested alleged intimidation and threats against witnesses in the case of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana who is currently held at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The trial of Fr. Nsengimana began on June 22 last year and lasted six days before it was adjourned to today, January 18. But in a 15-page protest report issued yesterday, African Rights said key prosecution witnesses were intimidated as away of discouraging them from going to Arusha to testify against Nsengimana. The rights body gives a number of people accused of failing justice and that those involved are residents of the former Nyanza, Butare Prefecture (now Southern Province), where Nsengimana had worked and lived during the 1994 Genocide. They include a fellow-priest as well as Nsengimana’s relatives. Those implicated include Ephrem Gasasira, an ICTR staff who is currently working in the documentation department at the tribunal. Gasasira was president of the Court of Appeal in Nyanza in 1994, and is himself accused by the same witnesses of working closely with Nsengimana to perpetrate genocide in Nyanza and beyond. ‘Before the trial began in June, African Rights informed the ICTR about the allegations against Gasasira, with respect to both the intimidation of witnesses, and the charges that he took an active part in the genocide,’ the AU report says. It also indicates that if Gasasira remains at the ICTR in Arusha, witnesses would be fearful for their lives as they prepare to leave for Arusha. Nsengimana was the rector of Christ Roi Secondary School in Nyanza, in the commune of Nyabisindu in 1994. Ends

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Rights body accuses ICTR staff of intimidating witnesses