On Thursday 2 July 2009, Trial Chamber III at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found former Defence investigator, Léonidas Nshogoza guilty of contempt. Nshogoza was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment but after giving him credit for time already served in custody, the Chamber ordered his immediate release.

The decision was the second judgement delivered by the ICTR concerning contempt of the Tribunal since proceedings began in 1997.

The Trial Chamber found Nshogoza guilty of one count of contempt for knowingly violating or showing reckless indifference to protective measures ordered by the Tribunal through meetings with and disclosing the information of two protected witnesses. The Accused had been charged with two counts of contempt and two counts of attempting to commit acts punishable as contempt, but the Chamber found that the Prosecution had failed to prove the remaining three charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The conviction relates to Nshogoza’s time working as an investigator during the initial trial proceedings against former Minister in the Interim Government of Rwanda, Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda. Kamuhanda was later found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Prior to the conviction of Nshogoza, a protected witness known only as ‘GAA’ had pleaded guilty to one count of contempt and was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. GAA was a witness in the case against Kamuhanda and admitted to giving false testimony under solemn declaration on 18 May 2005. According to the Indictment against GAA, he received and accepted inducements from Léonidas Nshogoza, but the Prosecution in Nshogoza’s case failed to prove this charge. It was however proven that Nshogoza met with GAA as well as another witness, ‘A7/GEX’. 

The trial began on 9 February 2009 after Nshogoza voluntarily surrendered to the Tribunal in February 2008.

Contempt proceedings are also ongoing at the ICTR’s sister Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), against former spokesperson for the Prosecutor, Florence Hartmann, and former President of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Šešelj.

Léonidas Nshogoza

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda