Unscripted

In the course of my work here at the Tribunal, I spent an awful lot of time reading transcripts of court proceedings. Many times I’ll laugh out loud, and almost as often, I’ll feel a sinking feeling as the pain of a witness becomes very clear. I’ve started writing down some of the more memorable quotes – uplifting and enlightening alike – and present them here. While presenting both funny and sad on the same page is an odd juxtaposition, such is the nature of the work here at the Tribunal. In that way, this is reflective of a day-to-day process.

All quotes are taken from publically-available transcripts of public court sessions. All updates are added to the end of their respective sections.

Last update: November 14th, 2008

…on the lighter side

Prosecutor: Witness name: (reads name)

Judge: Ask him whether that’s his name

Prosecutor: Is that your name, witness?

Witness: Yes, that’s my name.

Prosecutor: Year of birth, 1970; is that your year of birth?

Witness: Yes, that’s correct.

Prosecutor: Male?

Presiding Judge: We can see that.

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Defense Lawyer: (after very long back-and-forth regarding some rough sketches belonging to the witness) Those are the sketches that you say are either now in destroyed or in your office in Kigali?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Defense Lawyer: When are you returning to Kigali?

Witness: Sir, with the way this questioning is going, it might be next year.

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Judge: Yes, we can go into closed session. I think there is nobody (in the gallery) anyway.

Defense Lawyer: We’ve worn them out.

Judge: You managed to that, counsel.

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Witness: (rapidly describes difference between banana, tea, and coffee plants)

Judge: Counsel… are you understanding the difference between tea and bananas and coffee? I must admit, I’m lost.

Defense Lawyer: I understood it at breakfast this morning, but not in court today.

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Judge: What time the sun rose? Is that what you’re asking the witness?

Defense Lawyer: Yes.

Judge: Tell you a time that the sun rose on the 8th of ——-, 1994?

Defense Lawyer: I will then ask when, in proximity to that, the attackers arrived. I’m trying to get a time.

Judge: How would anyone know or keep the time when the sun rises?!

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Prosecutor: Can you identify the accused?

Witness: Yes, absolutely so.  Well, he is sitting to my right to my left. He’s wearing eyeglasses, and he’s sitting behind.  I think the – he’s on the second bench, I think. He’s wearing glasses, but then I see two people wearing glasses.  He is the one further to the left. 

Prosecutor: Your Honours, let the record reflect that he has recognised the Accused, and I would wish to rest and ask no further questions.

Defense Lawyer: The man further to the left is not [the accused], for the record. 

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Judge: [Counsel], you are not giving the French interpreters enough time.

Defense Lawyer: I’m, please, – Mr. Adjovi, please just tell Mr. Zaduk, and he will tell me because I am concentrating. Anyway, we think we are working in the language which is being communicated in and I fully accept this and ask the indulgence of the Court. And I will slow down and Mr. Zaduk will kick me if I don’t slow down. I really mean it, please.

(brief exchange)

Judge: Don’t kick him.

Defense Lawyer: It’s a friendly kick.

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Defense Lawyer: When was the coup d’etat attempt in Ruhengeri, or in Rwanda, in general?

Witness: Counsel, I believe the coup attempt first is prepared. I knew about it in 1980. Thank you.

Judge: 1980?

Witness: 1980. 1980.

Judge: The coup which brought Juvenal into power?

Presiding Judge: Let’s ask counsel what coup d’etat he is meaning.

Defense Lawyer: Well, the one in 1973.

Presiding Judge: Okay. This is not Canada, Counsel. There are more than – there are many coup d’etats.

Defense Lawyer: Well, we had an attempted one in 1837.

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Defense Lawyer: Madam Witness, could you please tell the court where you were born?

Witness: I was born in Nkuli commune, in Ruhengeri prefecture.

Defense Lawyer: And what year were you born?

Madam President: You never ask that question of a lady.

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(*Note: This falls somewhere between “the lighter side” and “the reality of Rwanda”

Prosecutor: You’ve told us that Jean-Marie had been a well-behaved boy who became a little agitated. Remember telling us that?

Witness: I told you he was well-behaved but capricious. He was good-hearted, but capricious.

Prosecutor: Interesting word, “capricious”. You are aware there is a suggestion he shot, with an AK-47 rifle, three apparent police officers, or persons in uniform?

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Defense Lawyer: So you are a Canadian citizen, having been born in Canada, and you currently live in my home city of Toronto; is that right?

Witness: That is correct.

Defense Lawyer: How’s the weather?

Witness: Freezing cold.

Defense Lawyer: You are making me homesick.

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Witness: No, there was no problem to resolve when it came to the French soldiers. The French soldiers came. They told us about the instructions they had received. So there was no problem to solve. And I had put full confidence in their ability to do so. So there was no problem to solve.

Prosecutor: You’re surrounded, there was gunfire. Ntabakuze is telling you he can’t protect you in Kanombe. You think you don’t have supplies. You have 50 or 60 people hanging out in the residence of the presient. You can’t move about Kigali. You were shot at the day before. You have to get a helicopter to fly in Kanombe. Do you want to tell Their Honours, again, that there wasn’t a problem?

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(power outage from H1515 to H1520)

Presiding Judge: So, we are on again. We can live without the [TV] screens.

Defense Lawyer: I thought Mr. Morely had found a new way of registering an objection.

Prosecutor: I’m always looking.

Defense Lawyer: And I don’t put it past him either.

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Prosecutor: You’ll hear from our Learned friend that Prosecutino witnesses were wishy-washy, were unreliable. That is the art of advocacy. It is no offence. But we’ll continue to trust on the good judgment of the Honourable Judges who are professional Judges.

Presiding Judge: Thank you very much, Mr. Egbe.

Defense Lawyer: Mr. Egbe, wishy-washy is not a word in my vocabulary and I won’t use it.

… the reality of Rwanda

Witness: (on what happened to the other Tutsis in his area) “What happened to them was death. Nothing else.”

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Prosecutor: Witness, did any member of your family survive the attack?

Witness: There was no survivor in my family.

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Defense Lawyer: And so I think you killed several hundred people at the parish when you went back, did you not?

Witness: There were many, many. In fact, 540 people were killed and nobody survived.

Defense Lawyer: You threw grenades where women were, did you not?

Witness: Yes, grenades were thrown; very many of them were thrown, and that’s the truth. That’s what happened.

Defense Lawyer: And you finished off the wounded people, yourself, with knives and machetes, did you not, sir?

Witness: Yes, that’s what happened.

Defense Lawyer: And then you killed a lot of priests, about 30 out of 50 priests, did you not?

Witness: Very many, very many. That might be a small number. There were very many priests.

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Witness: Some bodies were in halves, some were mutilated. It was – the bodies were not full. And when I went to look at the – at where the plane crash had come down, when I checked there, I found the leg of my brother Sagatwa, which had remained there in the debris. And I recognised the leg becauseo f the shoe. And from that moment, I could not think any more, I was out of my mind.