Panel Seeks Release of U.S. Lawyer in Rwanda

By JOSH KRON
The New York Times
June 16, 2010

KAMPALA, Uganda — The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has formally requested that the Rwandan government release a jailed American lawyer who has represented genocide defendants, saying he has diplomatic immunity.

The request comes after a number of defense lawyers at the tribunal, based in Tanzania, said they also feared prosecution by the Rwandan government and threatened to withdraw their services.

The lawyer, Peter Erlinder, was arrested last month and accused of denying the genocide and threatening state security after traveling to Rwanda to represent a leading opposition candidate in presidential elections set for August. The candidate, Victoire Ingabire, had been charged with espousing “genocide ideology” after she raised the possibility that members of the current governing party might also have committed atrocities in the 1994 genocide.

Human rights observers say the Rwandan government has vaguely defined genocide ideology and is using charges of promoting it to punish political opponents and people who challenge the government’s position that extremist Hutus shot down the Rwandan president’s plane in 1994 to begin the campaign of murder. Hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis and a smaller number of moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide.

The Rwandan government says Mr. Erlinder’s writings could set off riots and civil disobedience. His defenders note that he may have provoked the government by recently helping file a lawsuit in Oklahoma arguing that Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame, was responsible for shooting down the plane, which was carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. He filed the suit on behalf of the widows of the two former presidents.

Administrators at the tribunal sent a formal request to the Rwandan government on Tuesday night requesting his “immediate release.”

“They are prosecuting this guy for what he has done here,” said Roland Amoussouga, the tribunal spokesman.

Rwandan officials could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Erlinder, 62, is a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota. If convicted, he could be jailed for as long as 20 years.

He was refused bail in an initial hearing on June 7; his appeal is to be heard on Thursday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.