Special Court for Sierra Leone, RUF Trial, Update 84a

RUF Trial

Special Court for Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

English

The bench read its considered statement on the Defence submissions1 regarding the comments made by the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, during his visit to the SCSL on 3 July 2006, at the beginning of proceedings on July 20th. On behalf of all three defence teams, Mr. Jordash had argued that the reference made by Mr. Annan to the accused at the SCSL as criminals who had destroyed the country, was in violation of the rights of accused persons, enshrined in Article 17 of the Court’s Statute. The Chamber stated that “On the substance of Mr. Jordash’s submission that this Trial Chamber distances itself….from H E Kofi Annan’s comments so that it might prevent the Chamber from further damage to its standing in the international community as a result of said comments we issue the statement for the record.”2 The Presiding Judge carried on to say that the Chamber recognized the Secretary General’s authority to make political statements, however it also noted that “what is absolutely clear, is that the judges of the international judiciary are not bound by political statements made by the chief executive of the United Nations or by member states of the United Nations.”3 The Chamber also reiterated various relevant articles of the Statute, elaborating on the separation of powers between the executive organ of the UN, as an agent of the international community, and the Special Court, as a judicial organ.

This week’s proceedings also saw the testimony of several crime-base, Prosecution witnesses who testified about rebel attacks on villages in the Masimera Chiefdom, Port Loko district, in 1999. Port Loko district figures prominently in the Prosecution’s Indictment, where it is alleged that RUF/AFRC forces carried out unlawful killings, committed crimes of sexual violence, utilized physical violence, recruited and used child soldiers, and committed abductions and forced labour, as they fled from Freetown in 1999.4 The opportunities for Defence counsel to cross-examination these crime-base witnesses were either declined outright or, when they did occur, were very brief and specific. This is in marked contrast to the often detailed and extensive questioning by Defence counsel of insider witnesses for the Prosecution (for example, the crossexamination of Witness TF1-041 was several days in length).