Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Suspects in massacre seek U.S. asylum: After charges dropped, Rwandans ask for haven

By Jerry Seper and Jim McElhatton
Sunday, August 17, 2008

Link to the original article and comments:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/17/suspects-in-massacre-seek-asylum/

Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff announced the March 2003 arrests with much fanfare: Three Rwandan rebels had confessed to brutally killing two American tourists on a safari vacation in a Ugandan national park four years earlier and would finally be brought to the United States to stand trial in the savage deaths.

Francois Karake, Gregoire Nyaminani and Leonidas Bimenyimana, all members of the Liberation Army of Rwanda, had been indicted a week earlier by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on charges of murder and conspiracy in the killings of Robert Haubner, 48, and his wife, Susan Miller, 42, in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park on March 1, 1999.

The American couple, who worked for Intel Corp. in Portland, Ore., where they also lived, had been kidnapped by more than 150 Rwandan rebels who scouted the rugged park in southwestern Uganda for several days, targeting for death more than a dozen English-speaking tourists.

The couple had been visiting - for the third time, counting their honeymoon - one of the richest ecosystems in Africa, the home to nearly 1,000 species of mammals, birds, trees, ferns, frogs and geckos, and a sanctuary for the Bwindi gorillas, which holds about half of the world's population of the critically endangered animal.

Bwindi is a remote, rain-forest area in the extreme southwestern region of Uganda near the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. It was a place the Oregon couple had come to love.

But in a brutal killing frenzy, the couple and 13 other unsuspecting travelers were kidnapped and force-marched into the jungle, where the two Americans and six other tourists - four British citizens and two New Zealanders - were savagely beaten, hacked and bludgeoned to death with axes and machetes.

Their Ugandan guide was burned alive.

"This indictment should serve as a warning," said Mr. Chertoff, who at the time headed the Justice Department's criminal division. "Those who commit acts of terror against Americans will be hunted, captured and brought to justice."

That ominous warning was never followed up. After a judge ruled the confessions inadmissible in 2006, the case fell apart.

Now, the three Rwandans are seeking political asylum in the United States and, ironically, Mr. Chertoff has moved from Justice to Homeland Security, where as secretary he now oversees the agency that must decide whether to grant those requests.

Brutal killings

In court documents, U.S. prosecutors called the killings "brutal," saying they were intended as part of a conspiracy to send a message to the United States that it should not support the Rwandan government. The indictment declared that Mrs. Miller had been raped and that the assault was both an "overt act" of the conspiracy and a "manner and means of effecting the conspiracy."

Court records show that the eight English-speaking tourists who perished in the park appear to have been killed in three separate attacks: Mr. Haubner was among three men killed in a first incident, followed by a man and a woman at a second location and then three women at still another site. The third attack claimed the life of Mrs. Miller.

The records show that two of the victims were found with handwritten notes on or near their bodies. One read: "This is the punishment of the Anglo-Saxon who sold us. You protect the minority and oppress the majority."

The seven hostages who survived, among them American Mark Ross, were given a note by the Liberation Army commander with instructions to deliver it to the U.S. ambassador. It read, "People cannot ignore our problem. You have supported the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in oppressing and massacring the Hutus without constraint. ... All Africans know your imperialist secret."

After agreeing to deliver the note, Mr. Ross and the other hostages were released.
In August 2006, the confessions of the three Rwandan rebels were ruled inadmissible by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., who said the evidence showed that the admissions came after they had been tortured while imprisoned by Rwandan authorities.

U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said the confessions were "extracted" after repeated questioning, lengthy periods of solitary confinement, torture and other physical abuse, adding that U.S. prosecutors could refile the charges only if they obtained additional evidence.
Judge Huvelle, in her 150-page ruling, said it was the fundamental concept of America's constitutional system of criminal law "that neither the body nor the mind of an accused may be twisted until he breaks."

"The court is painfully aware that two innocent American tourists were brutally killed at Bwindi on March 1, 1999," the judge wrote. "But that sentiment may not, under the law, dictate the result here. It is the government's burden to prove that the defendants multiple statements were each the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice.

"The government cannot, however, meet its burden where the defendants statements were extracted only after countless hours of repetitive questioning over a period of many months, during which time they were subjected to periods of solitary confinement, positional torture, and repeated physical abuse," she wrote.

Charges dropped

Five months later, prosecutors sought to drop the charges, saying the government's case relied heavily on the confessions, and Judge Huvelle had barred them from using the statements.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni discusses in Kampala the massacre of foreign tourists. He vowed that Ugandan forces will pursue and capture or kill Rwandan rebels who butchered eight foreign tourists.

"The United States is unable to proceed to trial at this time," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan M. Malis and Jeffrey Beatrice said in a court memo.

Although Justice Department officials said at the time they were reviewing the decision for a possible appeal, none was ever filed.

"My understanding was that the judge in the case worded the appeal in such a way that there was no room to appeal," DeAnne Haubner Norton, Mr. Haubner's sister, told The Washington Times.

The three Rwandans are now seeking political asylum in the United States, fearing they will be tortured or murdered by Rwandan authorities if returned to their native country. Their "fear of persecution" is outlined in a memo to Judge Huvelle filed by defense attorneys, who disclosed the asylum applications.

"This will assure that once charges are dismissed, the defendants will not be at risk for being taken from the country without the opportunity to address their fear of persecution, which would await them when they return," the memo said.

Jean Paul Bizimana (center) discusses his case with his translator in an empty courtroom at the Ugandan High Court in Kampala as he awaits his sentence. He received 15 years after calls by prosecutors for the death penalty were rejected. He said after the judgment was passed that the sentence was "unfair, unjust and politically motivated." Although he accepted being part of the gang that carried out the attack, he claimed he was not directly involved or responsible for any of the deaths. His lawyer said he may consider appealing against the judgment.

Michael W. Cutler, a now-retired 31-year U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) veteran who spent most of his career as a senior criminal investigator and intelligence specialist, said the U.S. government "obviously thought it had a good case" and has detained the men for the past five years "apparently over concern that they are, in fact, the killers."

An Australian tourist who survived the attack on a group of foreigners in Uganda is escorted by embassy officials before leaving Uganda at Entebbe airport.

"Why in blazes would we entertain the idea of accepting asylum applications from men who have been described by U.S. law-enforcement authorities as cold-blooded killers?" he asked. "The fact that the judge tossed the confessions doesn't make them innocent.

"Remember, these men are not simply claiming political asylum, they were charged as prime suspects in two brutal murders," he said. "We have to weigh how their release into America would impact on our society and whether our government is looking out for the safety of all Americans. Who does our government really want to protect?"

Mr. Cutler said Karake, Nyaminani and Bimenyimana should be required to prove during a still-unscheduled immigration hearing that they did not take part in the killings. If they can prove it, he said getting political asylum would be no problem.

"If they are not the murderers, for God's sake, let's not send them home to be killed. But if they can't, I would rather err on the side of protecting those Americans who live peaceably in this country, those who the government has a duty to protect."

At a hearing, Karake, Nyaminani and Bimenyimana would need to establish that they have a "credible fear of persecution" if they were to be deported back to Rwanda, meaning that there is a significant possibility they would be imprisoned, tortured or even killed.

"How about credible fear for people living in this country?" Mr. Cutler asked. "This is an awful situation, but I would want to make certain we are not releasing onto the streets of America three cold-blooded killers that government prosecutors sought to put in prison."

Tortured?

But Amnesty International, in documents released in March 2007, said it feared the men would be tortured or killed if they were returned. It said it had received "numerous consistent reports of torture, extrajudicial killings and prolonged detention without trial" for those identified as members of rebel groups based in Rwanda and Uganda.

The organization has opposed the return of anyone to Rwanda to stand trial "until the Rwandan government is able to guarantee full security to returned suspects during and after their detention; and until the Rwandan legal system can guarantee suspects the right of fair trial in accordance with internationally recognized law and standards."

Amnesty International supports the development of the national justice system in Rwanda, but has expressed its concern that that country's national justice system has not shown an ability to conduct trials in accordance with international fair trial standards.

Karake, Nyaminani and Bimenyimana were among 10 men named as suspects and returned from Uganda to Rwanda after the killings. They were handed over by the Ugandan government to Rwanda's chief of external security, Joseph Nzabamwita, in the town of Kibale in western Uganda and later detained at the Remera Military Barracks in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

Rwandan authorities charged that the 10, all Rwandan nationals, were members of the Liberation Army of Rwanda, or the Assembly of Rwandan People, an armed group seeking to overthrow the country's government.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of Homeland Security, has detained the three men at an undisclosed location pending a hearing in their asylum request. They had been held at the D.C. Jail for nearly four years.

"All three Rwanda nationals are in ICE custody with ongoing legal proceedings," said ICE spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs. "For this reason, we are unable to comment further."

Mr. Chertoff, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the case.

When relatives of the Haubners first asked questions on whether the men were going to be released, Christopher S. Bentley, acting deputy chief of U.S. Customs and Immigration Services' Office of Communications, said decisions on asylum cases were made "as quickly as we can."

150 invaders

U.S. prosecutors said the three Rwandan rebels were among a band of about 150 men who invaded the Bwindi National Park, a remote rain forest in the southwestern region of Uganda known for the presence of rare mountain gorillas. They said the rebels had scouted the rugged park for several days before targeting English-speaking tourists for death.

The prosecutors said the attackers rounded up more than 20 tourists from a campground and separated the 17 who spoke English. The captives were then marched by force into the forest toward the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two other Americans were among those captured and later released. Three of the women were raped before being killed.

The indictment said the rebels killed Mr. Haubner by striking him on the head multiple times with an axe.

In January 2006, a fourth man arrested in the attack, Jean Paul Bizimana, now 32, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Ugandan High Court Judge John Bosco Katutsi, who rejected calls by prosecutors for the death penalty.

During the sentencing hearing, Bizimana, who was arrested in 2004 near the border with Rwanda and taken to Uganda's capital, Kampala, to face nine counts of murder, asked the court for leniency, saying "I have a family to look after."

But Judge Katutsi replied, "Those you killed also had families.

"These people were killed in cold blood and you were part of the gang. ... The deceased came to Uganda for pleasure, and they went back in coffins," he said.

Also killed in the attacks were Rhonda Avis, 27, and Michelle Strathern, 26, both of New Zealand; Mark Lindgren, 23, Martin Friend, 24, Steven Robert, 27, and Joanne Cotton, 28, all from Great Britain. The Ugandan guide was identified as Paul Ross Wagaba, who was beaten and hacked, pushed under a truck and set afire.

In issuing her ruling, Judge Huvelle detailed a large body of evidence she said showed that the three rebels had been physically and psychologically tortured by Rwandan authorities during the time of a joint Rwandan-FBI investigation into the killings. She said they had been kept in solitary confinement, often in bare, wet cells with no light and had been beaten repeatedly, including with bricks and a piece of rubber.

Associated Press U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said the confessions were "extracted" after repeated questioning, lengthy periods of solitary confinement, torture and other physical abuse, adding that U.S. prosecutors could refile the charges only if they obtained additional evidence.

Nyaminani, who was 32 at the time of his 2003 arrest, said that at one point during captivity he had his wrists bound together with nylon rope, one over his shoulder, the other behind his back for two weeks. Karake, then 38, testified during the suppression hearing that Rwandan captors handcuffed him from the wrists to the ankles and repeatedly beat him with bricks and a wooden stick. Bimenyimana, then 34, told similar tales.

Judge Huvelle found that their testimony was bolstered by specialist and medical testimony, including physical examinations of the men.

Gerard Gahima, then-Rwanda's attorney general, told reporters the three men were among more than 3,000 rebels captured during a wave of attacks on Rwanda from rebel bases in the Congo in May and August 2001. He said government interrogations discovered during questioning that they had been involved in the 1999 attacks in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

"They basically admitted involvement in the attack and indicated that they were foot soldiers, not masterminds," Mr. Gahima said.

Handwritten notes

The handwritten notes given to the survivors of the brutal attacks called for an end to the U.S. government's support of the Rwandan government, saying Americans, among others, had supported the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in oppressing and massacring Hutus.

Similar notes were found on the bodies of two other victims, identifying them as Anglo-Saxons who were killed as punishment for their suspected oppression of the Hutu majority.

Then-U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard Jr. in the District said at the time that the attacks in Uganda were "clearly an attempt to use terror to make a dramatic political point.

"As in all terrorism cases, we will work tirelessly to apprehend those responsible and bring them to justice. The governments of Rwanda and the United States have cooperated extensively in the joint effort to investigate this crime," he said.

Swiss-born tourist Daniel Walthers (left) arrives at a Nairobi airport from Uganda. He is one of the tourists who survived the attack on a group of foreign tourists on a gorilla-watching safari in Uganda. Two Americans, four Britons and two New Zealanders, together with Ugandan guards, were killed - some hacked to death - in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park by members of Rwandan Hutu death squads.

"We appreciate the assistance of the government of Rwanda and its intention to continue to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of all those responsible for the attack in Uganda," he said.

The Liberation Army of Rwanda was formed in 1996, the result of a merger of the former Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR), the army of the Rwandan Hutu regime that carried out the genocide of approximately 1 million Tutsis in 1994 and the Interahamwe, the civilian militia force that assisted that genocide.

Nearly a decade after the deaths of her brother and sister-in-law, Mrs. Haubner Norton is resigned to the fact that there may never be justice for the family.

"The FBI worked really hard on this, there were a lot of people who worked very hard to get these guys over here," she said. "The FBI and Justice Department felt they had a good case.
"I'm a little angry at the judge because she was basically judge and jury," she said.

"Unfortunately, I've just kind of given up on the whole thing. I just figured it's an injustice, but there is nothing I can do about it. People should know the justice system doesn't always work. A lot of times it does, but in this case something went wrong."

Source:
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 3:57 PM