ICTR takes measures to prevent abuse of legal aid system

The registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Adama Dieng has said the Tribunal has taken a series of measures to “prevent abuses of the legal aid system and protect the integrity of the Tribunal’s judicial process”, the Hirondelle news agency reported. In a statement issued on Wednesday, he added however that “defence teams that are professional in their conduct and individuals with nothing to hide have nothing to be worried about in this context”. The measures include restrictions on the giving of gifts by defence teams to their clients and strict personal searches of people visiting or meeting detainees. The Tribunal has also introduced “enhanced screening of potential and serving defence investigators to ensure that no members of defence teams obtain positions by false pretences”. The statement denied that the measures were “an assault on the independence of the defence”. “These measures are necessary to ensure that the financial resources provided by [UN] member states for the provision of legal aid to ensure a fair trial are not abused,” Dieng said. The measures come after several discrepancies in the work of the ICTR, including possible fee-splitting between defence lawyers and their clients, a defence investigator turned possible genocide suspect and the discovery that a detainee was running a defamatory website.