Defence Blog Canada

Arusha

Leonidas Nshogoza, a Rwandan indicted at the beginning of February for disdain at the International Criminal Court for Rwanda, still makes not have got a lawyer to support himself.

In a missive addressed to the Registrar of the Court last month, the accused reminded of the tribunal's duty to supply him with a lawyer without any not due delay.

Defendants at the ICTR, all considered as being indigent, are provided with a lawyer from a particular listing maintained by the Registry. The accused supplies name calling of three possible advises and the Register would O.K. one of them.

Nshogoza was accused by a witnesser of having tried to corrupt him in the trial of a former Rwandan Education and Culture Curate Jean Delaware Dieu Kamuhanda, who was sentenced to life in prison house in September 2005. Indicted in Rwanda, he was imprisoned there for respective calendar months before coming to Arusha, where he was at once charged and detained. He was then a member of Father Emmanuel Rukundo's defense mechanism team. Rukondo was the former Military Chaplain.

A Canadian lawyer, Allison Turner, had acted as a defense mechanism advocate during the initial period, but her contract was terminated by the registry. The registrar proposed to Mrs Nat Turner a payment of 50 000 USD as disbursals incurred by the defence.

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"This is stumbling point which have a direct impact on Nshogoza", she explained to the Hirondelle Agency, shortly before her going to Montreal. According to her, the register failed to fulfil its duties by not officially naming her as a counsel.

A Pb lawyer before the ICTR is remunerated approximately 100 USD per hour, but the appraisal of its work, apart from the hearings, was always prostrate to arguments and negotiations.

For the time period 2005-2007, the cost of the defense mechanism accounted for 8.4% of the budget of the Court (21 million USD), compared to 24% for the prosecution (60 million USD).