Court Grants Bail and Frees American Lawyer in Rwanda

By JOSH KRON
The New York Times
June 17, 2010

KAMPALA, Uganda — Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer jailed in Rwanda after being accused of denying the country’s genocide, was released Thursday on bail amid growing international pressure, allowing him to leave Rwanda, possibly for good.

Judges in a high court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, overturned an earlier decision to deny bail to Mr. Erlinder, 62, citing questions over his medical condition. Mr. Erlinder, who has been hospitalized since Tuesday with high blood pressure, was not present.

“Peter can go back to the United States,” said Mr. Erlinder’s lawyer, Kennedy Ogetto, adding that there was no scheduled time for him to return. “There is no date.”

The court’s decision came after pressure from the United Nations and the United States to free Mr. Erlinder, who works at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Dozens of lawyers at the tribunal, which handles cases related to the Rwandan genocide but is based in Tanzania, said that Mr. Erlinder had been arrested for his work there, despite holding diplomatic immunity, and they had threatened to stop working because of his case.

Mr. Erlinder was arrested days after going to Rwanda in May to represent Victoire Ingabire, a presidential candidate charged with “divisionism” and “genocide ideology,” and with collaborating with terrorists ahead of elections scheduled for August.

Although Mr. Erlinder had been jailed for weeks in Rwanda, his lawyer, Mr. Ogetto, said that he had never been formally charged with any crimes. He was originally denied bail so that the police could continue investigating, Mr. Ogetto said, and there was no determined date when Mr. Erlinder would have to return, if at all.

But the Rwandan government said that it had charged Mr. Erlinder, and that despite his absence the investigation would continue.

“The decision to grant bail to Peter Erlinder was made out of concern for his physical and mental health,” the Rwandan government said in a press release after the court decision, “and in no way diminishes the seriousness of charges against him.”

“Bail on health grounds cannot be mistaken as vindication for Mr. Erlinder,” Martin Ngoga, Rwanda’s prosecutor general, said in the statement. “It just proves that the justice system he so freely criticizes was willing to show him compassion.”

For Mr. Erlinder’s relatives, who say they have not spoken with him since his arrest, the decision came as reassurance.

“I am so relieved I can hardly believe it,” said his daughter, Sarah Erlinder. “It’s not over, I don’t think, but it’s a huge step forward.”