NAIROBI
Three witnesses due to testify at the trial of former minister Eliezar Niyitegeka at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, northern Tanzania, were prevented from leaving Rwanda on Friday because of new government travel regulations, news agencies reported.
Niyitegeka is charged with ten counts that include genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
The lead prosecutor at the trial, Kenneth Fleming, said Rwandan officials had stopped the three at Kigali airport "on spurious grounds", Internews reported. "[On 7 June] those witnesses were turned away on the grounds that we had not complied with all the conditions. The witness protection unit undertook to comply with the additional requirements, and this last Friday they were turned away again," he told the court on Monday.
In a similar incident last week, the "Butare Trial" - the largest before the UN court - was adjourned for the third time in less than two weeks because eight witnesses had been unable to leave Rwanda due to the travel requirements imposed.
Rwanda's representative at the tribunal, Martin Ngoga, told Internews that the witnesses had deposited their documents too late, for travel documents to be processed in accordance with government regulations. "In the past, we used to put names of all witnesses under one travel document, but we thought it should be appropriate to make all witnesses travelling outside Rwanda to have their passports, just like other citizens," he said.
Witnesses were reportedly required to provide a "certificate of good conduct" from their local authorities before being allowed to travel, news agencies reported. But political analysts commented that the regulations put witnesses at risk by forcing them to disclose their reason for travel, Reuters reported.
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