NTUYAHAGA EXTRADITION CASE ADJOURNED FOR LACK OF FUNDS BY DEFENSE

By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala, Internews Correspondent

DAR ES SALAAM 26 November 2001 (Internews) The defense team in the extradition case for Bernard Ntuyahaga, a former Rwandan Army officer, today failed to present its last three witnesses because it lacks funds to pay for their travel from Europe and accommodation in Tanzania. The case was postponed to 10 December.

The government of Rwanda wants Ntuyahaga extradited to face murder charges for his alleged involvement in the killing of former Rwanda Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian United Nations peacekeepers in Kigali on 7 April 1994.

Jwan Mwaikusa, co-counsel for Ntuyahaga, told the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam that they are currently soliciting funds in Europe in order to bring the witnesses to Tanzania.

"The lead defense counsel, Luc de Temmerman, is currently in Belgium to contact three possible witnesses and arrange for their travel to Dar es Salaam," Mwaikusa told Principal Resident Magistrate Michael Luguru.

Luguru gave the defense team two weeks to produce the witnesses. The defense has already presented two witnesses.

Mwaikusa later told Internews that the defense requires $12,000 to $15,000 for the witnesses' travel and accommodation costs. "Ntuyahaga does not have this kind of money to bring the witnesses to Dar es Salaam, that is why de Temmerman is now in Europe trying to raise the money," the defense attorney stressed.

In September 2001, the second defense witness, Juvenal Bamboneyeho, a Burundian Catholic priest, told the court that Ntuyahaga would be "cut into pieces" if extradited to Rwanda.

Bamboneyeho, 55, is a Hutu currently living in exile in Belgium. The first defense witness was Christian de Beule from Belgium, a construction engineer, who also testified that Ntuyahaga would be killed if he were to return to Rwanda.

Rwanda and Belgium submitted extradition requests for Ntuyahaga two years ago but Tanzanian authorities rejected Belgium's request saying suspects must be extradited to the country where the crimes were allegedly committed.

The killing of Uwilingiyimana and the Belgian soldiers were among the first deaths in the April-June 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which claimed more than 800,000 lives. Two weeks after the murder of the Belgian troops, the UN Security Council voted to reduce its peacekeeping force in Rwanda from 2500 to 270 men.

De Beule has testified that Ntuyahaga cannot get a fair trial in Rwanda because the courts there are not impartial. De Beule alleged that there is a Rwandan network that forces witnesses to give false testimony.

Ntuyahaga, currently held in a Tanzanian jail, turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha in 1999, seeking witness protection.

The tribunal freed him in March 1999 after the prosecution dropped all charges against him in a botched attempt to have his case transferred to Belgium. However, he was re-arrested by Tanzanian authorities for immigration irregularities.

Ntuyahaga faces the death penalty if tried in Rwanda.

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