Rwandan Military Leaders Found Not-Guilty of Conspiracy and Genocide Planning

Today's ICTR judgments
in the Military-I trial completely rejected the Prosecution theory of
long-term planning and conspiracy to commit genocide by members of the
former Rwandan military leadership. All four defendants were found "not
guilty" of all counts charging conspiracy to commit genocide, based on
the Chambers ruling that their actions prior to April 6, 1994 were based on war-time conditions, not planning to kill civilians or to carry out a genocide against Tutsi Rwandans.

Gen.
Gratien Kabiligi was found not guilty of all remaining charges because
of the Prosecution's failure to prove his command authority over
Rwandan troops, and was ordered released immediately.

The
three other defendants were convicted of responsibility for particular
acts that the Chambers found were committed by members of the Rwandan
military. Col. Theoneste Bagsosora and Col. Anatole
Nsengiumva were found guilty of war crimes, acts of genocide and crimes
against humanity committed by Rwandan troops under their command. Major
Aloys Ntabakuze, whose command was limited to the Para-Commando
Battalion was held responsible for three incidents out of more than 40
that the Chamber found were not proved. Many of the crimes of which all
three were convicted do not appear in the indictments under which they
were prosecuted. All three were sentenced to life in prison and have announced plans to appeal.

The
ICTR Military-I Oral Judgment specifically referred to evidence
presented to the Chamber that civilian killings in Rwanda were
triggered by the assassination of the Rwandan President, which was part
of the final military assault to seize power by the RPF army of Paul
Kagame in 1994. The Judgements follow by less than a week the UN Security Council's public exposure of the massive continuing crimes of Kagame and the RPF in the Congo and the Great Lakes Region since 1996 and
the Open Letter from the President of Human Rights Watch calling for
the ICTR to fulfill its mandate by holding Kagame's RPF accountable for
crimes committed in 1994 in Rwanda, as well.

After
the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial closed in June 2007,
INTERPOL warrants have been issued for the RPF leadership and Paul
Kagame has been named in two European indictments for the assassination
of Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundi President Ntaryamira of
Burundi on the night of April 6, 1994. The indictments
confirm evidence in the Military-1 record that Kagame and the RPF are
responsible for the war crime, and military assault, that touched off
the tragic 100 days of war. The indictments also charge
Kagame's RPF with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
involving more than 300,000 civilian deaths.

Also
after the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial, former ICTR Chief
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and former ICTR Chief Investigator
Prosecutor Michael Hourigan have publicly described the on-going
"cover-up" of Kagame's responsibility for the assassination and the
planned RPF assault to take power. Now Ms. Del Ponte's
press aide is being prosecuted for contempt of court at the ICTY FOR
her courage in making public the US/UK role in removing Del Ponte from
her ICTR post because she insisted on fulfilling her mandate to hold
both sides responsible for their crimes in 1994.

To
date, the failure of the ICTR Prosecutor to put the full record of
crimes committed by the RPF has done a great disservice to the Judicial
Chambers of the ICTR and to International Justice. But,
most tragically, the juridical impunity created by the ICTR "cover-up"
of RPF crimes has been the root cause of the millions of deaths in
Rwanda, the Congo and the Great Lakes since the RPF invaded Rwanda with
the help of Uganda in 1990.

In
light of these disclosures of former ICTR Prosecutors and the December
12, 2008 Security Council Report fixing RPF responsibility for more
than 12 years of economic plunder and massive killings in the Congo,
which are also confirmed in Security Council Reports in 2001, 2002 and
2003, the ADAD Bureau will present an OPEN LETTER to the ICTR
President, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly detailing
the recent revelations that have called the integrity of the Tribunal
into question and the systematic withholding of relevant evidence from
the Chambers and requesting that all matters at the ICTR be suspended,
pending an independent investigation of the Office of the Prosecutor's
failure to abide by Security Council Resolution 955, and manipulation
of the ICTR by UN member-states, that is now in the public record.