PRESS BRIEFING ON RWANDA TRIBUNAL

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON RWANDA TRIBUNAL

An official of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Agwu Okali, briefing correspondents at Headquarters today, said that of the 25 detainees on a hunger strike over the issue of assignment of defence counsel, only one had a formal grievance -- his most recent and fourth request to change lawyers had not been granted. The other detainees, who had the counsels of their choice, had joined the strike in solidarity.

Mr. Okali, the Registrar on the Assignment of Defence Counsel to Detainees at the United Nations Detention Facilities in Arusha, said that with regard to the hunger strike, the situation was under control. A doctor was monitoring the condition of the detainees, some of whom had begun to eat again. So far, there had been no deterioration in their health, according to the doctor. He thought the situation would soon blow over.

For the Tribunal, the situation highlighted a matter of principle, Mr. Okali said. There was no judicial system in the world where indigent persons could choose any lawyer they wanted and have someone else pay for it. As it was, over a half million dollars had been dedicated to the defense of Jean-Paul Akayesu, the main proponent of the hunger strike. There was no basis for the action that was taking place. It had nothing to do with the Tribunal and was an expression of another political agenda.

He suggested that, following the conviction and sentencing of two individuals to life in prison, the detainees were beginning to realize the gravity of their situation. They would do anything to discredit the Tribunal. A group of lawyers from outside had been attacking the very idea of the Tribunal since its inception. They had first maintained that there had been no genocide and that the Security Council had no authority to create a tribunal. Among them was Mr. Akayesu's most recent choice for counsel, John Philpot, a Canadian lawyer who had been leading the revisionist campaign about genocide.

A correspondent asked if Mr. Okali agreed that it was easier to prosecute someone for the murder of one person than for the murder of 100,000. Mr. Okali agreed and said that people who were accused of killing 100,000 were usually the ones who had been in authority. Were it not for the Tribunal, they would have gone scot-free. Only an international regime could bring such people to account.

Asked if Mr. Akayesu's appeal was continuing without defence, Mr. Okali said that the appeal was not going on, in the sense that there was no hearing now. The trial was still in the preparatory stage. If Mr. Akayesu continued to refuse to abide by the system concerning the assignment of counsel, he would be assigned counsel in the interest of justice.

Rwanda Tribunal Briefing - 2 - 27 October 1998

What about in the interest of due process? a correspondent asked. Mr. Okali said that due process required one to have legal representation and the Tribunal would provide that.

Responding to a correspondent's comment that Mr. Philpot was not on the Court's list of 300 appeals lawyers from which the detainees could choose, Mr. Okali said while Mr. Philpot's name had not been on the list before, it had been added following Mr. Akayesu's request. That did not mean, however, that the Tribunal would assign him. While the choice of the accused was the chief factor taken into consideration, the Judges had also stipulated that the defence counsel at the Tribunal be drawn from a wide geographical distribution. The current composition of the group of defence lawyers was dominated by French and Canadian lawyers. No more lawyers from those national groups were currently being assigned. Mr. Philpot was a Canadian.

He went on to say that, in the case of Mr. Philpot, the Tribunal was personally reluctant to assign him as they did not consider him a person of good professional character. Such a decision was the prerogative of the Court. Mr. Philpot had filled the Internet with abuse of the Tribunal so unacceptable that it would be inappropriate to have him appear before the Court. Mr. Okali emphasized that if Mr. Philpot behaved in such an offensive manner in Canada he would be disbarred. He was on the list of defence lawyers because the requirement to get on the list was simply that the applicant be accredited to practice law in a State.

Asked if any of the other prisoners had voiced specific concern about their counsel, Mr. Okali said they had not. They had all been assigned the counsels of their choice. In the past there had been a problem because detainees had been changing counsel to delay the proceedings. Whenever one changed counsel, the new lawyer would say that he or she needed six months to become familiar with the case. At the end of those six months, the accused would choose another counsel who would then need six more months. In the beginning the Court had bent over backwards to accommodate such requests but had stopped when it realized that this was simply a strategy to keep the process from coming to a conclusion. Now the Court was stricter, and the detainees had to give very good reasons for changing their original choice.

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