The former Rwandan Minister of Planning Augustin Ngirabatware being prosecuted before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), has been separated from his lead attorney while the defense is coming to conclusion.
“The clerk was designated as lead counsel for the accused,” said Canadian Mylène Dimitri, who was previously Assistant Counsel in the defense team of former minister.
Following the hearing that was devoted to hearing the next to last defense witness, failed to learn more about the reasons for the departure of the first lead counsel, Peter Herbert Columbia.
Sources familiar with the matter, however, indicate that the accused himself had asked to separate from the lawyer.
When questioned, the spokesman for the tribunal, Roland Amoussouga, indicated that the replacement of Mr. Herbert had been announced by the Registry “in a confidential decision.”
Designated by the code name, DWAN 114, the witness of the day, who testified via videoconference from Vienna, Austria, presented himself as a former observer of the UN Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1994.
At the end of the day, it was not yet come into the merits of the charges against Ngirabatware. He will continue his testimony Tuesday.
Prosecuted for genocide and crimes against humanity, the former minister, who has already 31 defense witnesses, is accused of being the main instigator of the massacres of ethnic Tutsis in his hometown North Nyamyumba.
Ph.D. in economics from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Ngirabatware was in his country, teaching at the National University of Rwanda (1986-1994) and Minister of Planning (1990-1994).
During his exile from July 1994, he worked in various research institutes in Gabon and France.
Arrested in Germany on 17 September 2007, it is in the hands of the ICTR since October 8, 2008.
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