THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A United Nations prosecutor has charged a former Rwandan planning minister with contempt of court for allegedly bribing witnesses to recant testimony in an attempt to overturn his genocide convictions.
Prosecutor Serge Brammertz released the indictment against Augustin Ngirabatware on Friday outlining attempts to pay off a group of witnesses.
Ngirabatware was convicted by a U.N. tribunal of involvement in his country’s 1994 genocide and sentenced on appeal in 2014 to 30 years.
He sought a judicial review of his convictions in 2016, saying that four prosecution witnesses had recanted their trial testimonies.
Last month, U.N. judges rejected the review and upheld Ngirabatware’s convictions and sentence. The judges said he did not present “sufficient evidence capable of belief that the witnesses had truthfully recanted.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.