NEWS RELEASE
NOVEMBER 28, 2006

UN ICTR- ADAD
[Association de Avocat de la Defence]

ARUSHA, TZ – The Bureau of the Association of Defence Counsel at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal notes with alarm the Press Conference of ICTR Deputy-Registrar Everard O’Donnell on November 24, 2006. The Press Conference further calls into question the fundamental impartiality and integrity of the ICTR process, first raised last week by the publication of the Report of French Judge Bruguiere. [See attached transcription taken from a recording of the Deputy-Registrar’s Comments on 11/24].

As a juridical body, unlike either the Prosecution or Defence, the Tribunal is obligated to adhere to principles of impartiality and fairness which are seriously compromised when Tribunal administrators and spokespersons publicly comment upon the substance of cases currently pending before the Tribunal. This impression of partiality or bias is of particular concern when only one side in a war-time situation has been held to account, which is the unfortunate history of the ICTR to this date.

The demand of ADAD to investigate and prosecute all crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994 is nothing more than insistence that the ICTR adhere to the mandate of the Security Council which established the Tribunal. There is nothing in the Rules of the Tribunal that would prevent the President or the Chambers from requiring that the Office of the Prosecutor fulfill the mandate of the Tribunal in an even-handed manner.

The comments by the Deputy Registrar regarding the assassination of former Rwandan Pres. Habyarimana, unfortunately, reflect a disturbing level of advocacy, as well as a lack of familiarity with previously confidential evidence, introduced in the Military-1 Trial over the past year, which was not available in any previous trials.

First: The Report of Judge Bruguiere is merely an example of the new evidence from a wide range of sources, including previously classified UN and US documents that are part of the record in Military 1, but no previous trials.

Second: Ambassador Robert Flaten, the US Ambassador for Rwanda 1990-December 1993 has testified that there was no plan for a “Genocide” of which he or US intelligence services were aware

Third: Massacres Hutu civilians on a huge scale by the Tutsi military had occurred in Burundi in late 1993 and 1988…and Amb. Flaten warned both Kagame and Habyarimana that massacres of civilians would result from a resumption of the war in Rwanda, as well.

Fourth: In addition to the findings of Judge Bruguiere reported last week, sworn testimony from former RPF officers who were members of the assassination team in 1994, as well as former attorneys and investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor who independently investigated the assassination of Habyarimana (and reported their findings to Louise Arbour in 1997) establish that Kagame’s order to assassinate Habyarimana was transmitted by April 1, 1994.

Fifth: According to Gen. Dallaire’s testimony, it was he who blocked the investigation of the crash site by a team of French investigators, who were already in Africa and could have been on site in a matter of hours because he decided the investigation would not be credible (even though French nationals were also victims of the missile attack).

Sixth: The military superiority of the RPA/RPF as of February 1993 is not subject to dispute. Contemporaneous Code Cables from Gen. Dallaire to the U.N. report that the RPA/RPF was not concerned with civilian casualties, but with winning the war. Every military expert to examine the capabilities of each side, so far, has testified that the refusal of the RPA/RPF to negotiate a ceasefire until the civilian killings stopped was an impossible condition for the limited FAR troops.

Seventh: On May 25, 1994, a formal legal opinion from the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs reported that the Interim Government, based on the 1991 Constitution, was a legal government with which the RPF should negotiate, since the proposed Arusha Accords structure had been made obsolete the by resumption of hostilities by the RPF.

Even if it were proper for spokespersons for the Tribunal to comment on evidence in ongoing trials, which it is NOT, ADAD invites all representatives of the international press to examine the documentary and other evidence in the Military 1 Trial, to make an independent evaluation of these issues, as has Judge Bruguiere.

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Prof. Peter Erlinder, ADAD President [Eng.]
peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu
U.S. phone: 1-651-290-6384
ICTR phone: ext. 5073 [TZ cell: 075-425-1460

Me. Christopher Black, ADAD Press Counsellor [Fr.]
bar@idirect.com
ICTR phone: ext. 5288 [TZ cell: 075-266-6972]