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Issue 00435 |
September 9 - 15, 2006 |
issn 0856 - 9135 |
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UN Tribunal |
| Former Rwandan minister seeks asylum by Hirondelle News Agency Agnas Ntamabyariro “former Rwandan Minister of Justice serving a sentence in Rwanda for genocide crime” has demanded asylum after she has testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha (Tanzania), Hirondelle has learned this last Thursday. According to the tribunal, the former minister is already back in Rwanda. In a letter sent on Wednesday to both the president of the ICTR “ Judge Erik Mose from Norway”“ and the Rwandan Minister of the Interior, she “demands asylum and asks for the protection of the member states of the United Nations”. “ I ask the competent authorities of the United Republic of Tanzania to consider this letter as a demand for asylum in Tanzania”, the letter says. “ I am aware that I shall be submitted to torture and that the conditions of my detention (in Rwanda) will be unacceptable”, the former minister continues. “ I rightly fear that the Rwandan government will want to take a revenge for the details I have given during my testimony before the ICTR, a hearing that dealt with the conditions of her arrest and detention” she insists. In the course of the hearing that ended on Wednesday, she declared before the ICTR that while in exile in Zambia in 1997 she had been “ kidnapped” by Rwandan officials. She added that she had been “tortured and detained for nine years in Rwanda with no evidence held against her or a trial”. She also told the court that she had not been allowed to wash or change during the first three months of her captivity in Rwanda and had lived on water only for the first 28 days. The letter that Hirondelle received a copy of ends with her asking for “ a hearing before the ICTR “ to enable her to express her fears upon a return in Rwanda. Asked for a statement, the spokesman of the ICTR Timothy Gallimore (US) said that this witness had returned to Kigali on Wednesday, the very day of her uttering her asylum demand. The tribunal considers that this request was addressed to the Tanzanian authorities, Gallimore has added. Ntamabyariro’s hearing took place between August 21st and 29th at the demand of the former Minister of Commerce Justin Mugenzi, tried with three other ex-members of the interim government in action during the genocide. _
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