PETER ERLINDER TO BE RELEASED

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Gena Berglund, International Humanitarian Law Institute of
Minnesota, 651-208-7964; Scott Erlinder, brother of Peter Erlinder,
312-656-6098.

Peter Erlinder received "unconditional medical release" from the
Rwandan court.

Thursday, June 17, 2010 (Washington, DC) – Peter Erlinder, Professor
of Law at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, MN and Lead
Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR) was arrested in Kigali, Rwanda on May 28, 2010. On June 7,
2010, his application for bail was denied.

The U.S. Embassy in Rwanda reported to the family at 10:30 CST that
Peter Erlinder will be allowed to return to the United States, but
charges have not been dropped. Erlinder's attorneys were informed that
he would be receive “unconditional medical release” by the Rwanda
Court. The process has to work it's way through the court and prison
system. Actual release is possible on Friday, June 18. At 10:30 a.m.
CST the attorneys were on their way to the hospital to inform Erlinder
of the decision. Erlinder was not present in the courtroom when the
decision was announced.

Peter Erlinder's family credits the massive outpouring of support and
education of all the various stake holders and thanks each and every
person and organization for their work on behalf of Peter Erlinder.
And the family urges the Rwandan government to drop all charges,
citing the ICTR ruling that Professor Erlinder has diplomatic immunity
because of his work as ICTR defense attorney.

In a two-page letter issued this week the ICTR Office of the Registrar
in Arusha wrote, "The ICTR hereby informs the Rwandan authorities that
Professor Erlinder enjoys immunity and requests, therefore, his
immediate release."1

On June 14, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton responded
to a question at the Diplomacy Briefing Series Conference on Sub-
Saharan Africa in Washington, DC.

SECRETARY CLINTON: …
We’ve made [those concerns] known to the Rwandan Government. We really
don’t want to see Rwanda undermine its own remarkable progress by
beginning to move away from a lot of the very positive actions that
undergirded its development so effectively. We still are very, very
supportive of Rwanda. ... But we are concerned by some of the recent
actions and we would like to see steps taken to reverse those actions.
On the one hand, I understand the anxiety of the Rwandan leadership
over what they view as genocide denial or genocide rejectionism. There
are many countries that have been in a similar historic position, so I
do understand that and I know that they are hypersensitive to that,
but – because, obviously, they don’t want to see anything ignite any
kind of ethnic conflict again. So I’m very sympathetic to that.
But I think that there are ways of dealing with that legitimate
concern other than politically acting against opposition figures or
lawyers and others. So on the one hand, I understand the motivation
and the concern. On the other hand, I want to see different actions
taken so that we don’t see a collision between what has been a
remarkably successful period of growth and reconciliation and healing
with the imperatives of continuing to build strong democratic
institutions.2
END OF CLINTON'S REMARKS