Arusha, November 16th, 2005 (FH) -The lawyer of a person who was given a life sentence by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has complained that investigators probing alleged witness tampering in the case have not yet approached her to give evidence, despite her three requests to be heard.

Aïcha Condé from Guinea is the defence counsel for Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, former minister of higher education in the interim government which was in power during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda

Condé told Hirondelle News Agency Wednesday that her three letters demanding to be heard had up to now received no response from the tribunal

“Up to now, no one has found it necessary to contact me, which signifies that what I want to say is of no importance to them”, she said.

“I believe I have facts that would serve the interests of my client”.

During Kamuhanda’s appeal hearing in May 2005, two witnesses recanted their earlier testimonies claiming that they had been misled into giving false testimony. Another witness claimed to have been a victim of attempted bribery in order to also recant her testimony.

The court then ordered the Office of the Prosecutor to carry out investigations with a view of determining the veracity of the allegations and possibly instituting contempt of court proceedings.

Even though the tribunal had announced that the results of the investigation would be made public in mid October, the Prosecutor of the ICTR, Hassan Bubacar Jallow from Gambia told Hirondelle last week that that they “were not yet complete”.

According to the tribunal’s rules and regulations, anyone found guilty of contempt of court is liable to a prison term not exceeding five years or 10,000 US dollars or both. No one has been found guilty of contempt of court since the tribunal was set up in November 1994.

Jallow hired an independent American prosecutor, Loretta Lynch, who was to be helped by a group of ICTR investigators based in Kigali under the leadership of Pierre Duclos from Canada.

Despite the ongoing investigations, Kamuhanda’s life sentence was confirmed by the appeals chamber on September 9, 2005. Only one of the five appeal chamber judges, Judge Inés Weinberg de Roca from Argentina gave a dissenting view.

When approached for comment after the confirmation of the sentence, Aïcha Condé insisted on her client’s innocence.

KN/PB/AT