Kigali — The UN Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has dismissed suggestions by the campaign organisation African Rights indicating that the Tribunal was informed of the presence of a Genocide suspect among its staff. But now RNA has exclusively acquired correspondences dating back to May last year between the Tribunal and African Rights on the issue.

Last week, African Rights said in a report that Mr. Gasasira Ephrem - working in the Documentation Department at the Tribunal is key suspect and was collaborator to Roman Catholic priest Father Hormisdas Nsengimana - whose Genocide trial reopened Jan.18. They are accused of massacres that took place in Nyanza.

According to African Rights, prosecution witnesses in the case of the cleric allege he worked in collaboration with Gasasira - who was then prosecutor in Nyanza (now part of Southern Province). Father Hormisdas was also from there and apparently worked with Mr. Gasasira Ephrem to "completely finish all Tutsis". Gasasira has been working with the Tribunal since 2003.

Genesis

The campaign organisation said it informed the Tribunal of the accusations against Mr. Gasasira before the first opening of the trial of the cleric in June last year. The case was however postponned six days later and pushed to Jan. 18 2008 but on different reasons.

According to the witnesses in the 15-page report, Gasasira has been part of a well coordinated sabotage system that has been carrying out a campaign of intimidation of the witnesses - to discourage them from testifying. Some witnesses have even been bribed by "friends of Hormisdas still in Nyanza".

Witness named Eric in the report says: "After Father (Dénys) Sekamana openly told me that a very strong person like Ephrem Gasasira, who knows everything about us, will protect Hormisdas in Arusha against people like me, I spoke about this to the ICTR and to the Office of the Prosecutor in Butare. I made my apprehensions clear to them. They promised to follow up the matter".

But would later learn that Father Sekamana is indeed free "doing what he was doing before. And still has friends in Nyanza who had worked with him to protect Hormisdas."

In a length testimony, witness Eric names Father Dénys Sekamana in numerous situations where they met and he was intimidating him. The cleric is now a priest in another diocese which RNA has not been able to independently verify. There are also various other catholic priests who were at Christ Roi Secondary School - the scene of some of the worst massacres in Southern Rwanda.

In the report released Thursday last week, African Rights wonders how a high profile case as this one would start without any consideration of the fact that the Tribunal knows there is a suspect in the same case who remains on its payroll.

Besides, the organisation also says the Tribunal has not given "any assurances" to the witnesses of their security - later alone - reprimand the suspect.

Tribunal fires back

On Tuesday, the Chief Spokesman of the Tribunal Mr. Rolland Amousouga vehemently denied the court had been informed of any accusations against its staff-member Mr. Gasasira Ephrem.

"These allegation have never been brought to the attention of the Registrar who is the competent organ in charge of recruitment and management of personnel", Amousouga told a press conference in Arusha.

"We are taking these allegations serious. We are going to verify. They are just allegations not proven facts"

Mr. Amousouga said the Tribunal learnt of the allegations against Mr. Gasasira from the media that was qouting from an African Rights report. He also said the Witness protection section was not informed as well of the allegations.

Top officials involved

However, RNA has now exclusively acquired email correspondences between the Excutive Director of African Rights Ms. Rakiya Omar and Senior Trail Attorney in the Office of the Chief Prosecutor Mr. Wallace Ndugulire Kapaya. He is also the head of the Trial Team in the case of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana.

Interestingly, Mr. Kapaya and another attorney on the same case Mr. Sylver Ntukamazina were the ones who initiated contacts with Ms. Rakiya in early 2007. She told RNA that she was in Europe at that time but was invited to "urgently" return to Rwanda because they wanted to follow up on the priest's case, the witnesses and their protection as well.

In addition, all the email contacts between Ms. Rakiya and Mr. Kapaya were also copied to Mr. Alex Obote Odera, Senior Principle Private Secretary to the Prosecutor. This essentially means the Prosecutor was briefed on all the communication and progress of the court - which in turn indicates that all the relevant departments were briefed.

In a reply dated June 05 2007, Mr. Kapaya says "we can no longer talk about nibbing the problem (witness intimidation and bribery) in the bud" and "need to weed and uproot it before it causes further damage". Mr. Kapaya and his team had also been to Nyanza and were told by the same witnesses of their fear for their lives.

"Your findings support what Slyver (Ntukamazina) and I experienced in Nyanza", writes Kapaya in the June 05 email. By this, Mr. Kapaya was essentially in accordance with the fact that the witnesses were worried about their security and the presence of another individual mentioned by the same witnesses.

In another email by Mr. Sylver Ntukamazina - the colleague to Mr. Kapaya on October 02 2007, he writes "Mr. Kapaya and I are seriously thinking about the possibility of continuing our cooperation, especially in order to adress witness intimidation". He said he would get back to Ms. Rakiya but did not, instead the trail in question went ahead and it started last week.

According to the witnesses, they also raised the names of Ephrem Gasasira, and the fact that he was working with the court in their testimonies during the first hearing. But are scared to go back for the continuation of the trail because the person they accuse is still at the court and working with what Ms. Rakiya described as a "very sensitive" department because it deals with translation and documents.

Father Hormisdas Nsengimana was handed over by the Camerounian government to the ICTR just six months after a damning 2001 African Rights report detailing the accusations against him. The latest report was, according to Ms. Rakiya published following repeated outcry by witnesses in the case of the cleric fearing for their security as the trial was due to resume.

But why?

So then why would the Chief Spokesman Mr. Rolland Amousouga of an institution like the ICTR that employs top academics, internationally aclaimed senior officials and career diplomats tell the whole world that the Tribunal was not informed about Ephrem Gasasira.

"I think all the information I have given you and the officials involved should speak it all. Maybe other relevant departments were not informed - but is that my job to go on looking for people to give them information when that is the job they are paid to do?", poses African Rights' Rakiya.

She adds: "The Tribunal has simply shown the highest form of institutional arrogance.I think sometimes they just simply say 'those are little people, it will all be fine after a while'."

"The tribunal's comments seem intended to show that they were surprised to have an employee who is a suspect. That is ridiculous - so many of their employees have either been charged or resigned and are now on the run in Europe because they are genocidaire", she said.

Ms. Rakiya said she lived in Nyanza before and during the Genocide "that is why the case of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana is of particular interest". The witnesses are also confortable working with her that the ICTR passed through her to have them even give any evidence.

By virtual of the position that Mr. Kapaya holds in the Office of the Chief Prosecutor and attachment to the case in question, it is highly unlikely that he did not inform the entire decision making hierarchy of the Tribunal.

Besides, a top aid to the Chief Prosecutor Mr. Abubakar Jallow was also given copies of all communication. Could it be that he just kept quiet and did not update his boss - or probably Chief Prosecutor did not feel this was worthy a follow up.

$1.1 Billion

Meanwhile, the UN has has allocated a budget of 267,356,200 million dollars (approximately 145 billion Rwandan francs) to the same International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for the 2008/2009 period.

This ICTR budget constitutes 6,4% of the total budget of the United Nations for the two years to come and represents only for 2008, approximately 12% of the Rwandan national budget (607,5 billion RWF).

The administrative and budgetary committee of the UN quantified at 1.1 billion dollars the cost of the ICTR since its creation in November 1994.