Defence attorneys at UN tribunal begin three-day strike

Lawyers representing detainees at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), in Arusha, northern Tanzania, began a three-day strike on Wednesday to protest "a serious deterioration" of the rights of the accused.

As a result of the action, two trials that were in session have been adjourned.

Despite ongoing negotiations between tribunal officials and the defence attorneys, "intemperate decisions of the tribunal's Defence Management Section" had further reduced the defence's liberty of action, they said in a statement issued on Tuesday by the Executive Committee for the Representation of Defence Counsels.

"It is, therefore, the very sense of the mission bestowed on the defence which is now perverted," the committee said.

"In consequence, and in full accord with the detainees, we hereby advise you that effective from Wednesday 28 January 2004, and for three days thereafter, subject to extension, we shall not attend court," it added.

However, tribunal spokesman Roland Amoussouga told IRIN on Wednesday: "The [ICTR] president and the registrar received a letter from the lawyers, raising their concerns and all the parties held a meeting last night to discuss them."

The lawyers said that they would not bill for work lost during the strike.

The UN Security Council established the tribunal in November 1994 as an ad hoc court to prosecute those responsible for the April-June 1994 genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda in 1994. At least 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed during the genocide.