MN Law Prof. Discusses Expected Charges In Rwanda

A Minnesota law professor jailed in Rwanda earlier this year on allegations that he minimized that country's 1994 genocide said Friday he has "no doubt" he'd be killed if he returned to Rwanda to face expected charges.

Peter Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., spoke to The Associated Press a day after Rwanda's chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, said he would charge Erlinder with genocide denial, based on articles Erlinder wrote that were published on the Internet.

Erlinder said Friday that formal charges against him had not been filed, but he expected them to be. He said he would follow his attorneys' advice, but when asked if he thought he would be killed if he returned to Rwanda, he replied, "I have no doubt."

Erlinder has been a lead defense attorney for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is prosecuting Rwandans charged with participating in the mass killings. He was arrested May 28 after going to Rwanda to help an opposition leader who wants to run for president. A judge released him June 17 on medical grounds.

Since then, an opposition leader and an opposition journalist have been killed, and a former Rwandan general who is in exile has been shot. Erlinder's former client, opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, was arrested this month, accused of being involved in the formation of a terrorist organization.

More than 500,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis but some moderate Hutus, were massacred by Hutus during the 1994 genocide. The massacres ended when mostly Tutsi rebels led by current Rwandan president Paul Kagame defeated the extremists.

Erlinder has said the official version of events is wrong and it's inaccurate to blame one side. He said killings by Hutus of Hutus who were protecting Tutsis would not be genocide under the U.N. definition, but may count as war crimes or crimes against humanity. He also said the tribunal ruled last year that there was insufficient evidence to support the view that the genocide was a conspiracy planned long in advance. He said other researchers have concluded that more Hutus than Tutsis may have been slain.

"These are not my conclusions, these are conclusions of others," Erlinder said. "Essentially I'm being accused of reporting evidence and the conclusions of others. That's really what lies behind the criminal charges against me."

Meanwhile, a United Nations report released Oct. 1 accuses Rwandan troops and rebel allies of slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutus in Congo in the 1990s. The report outlines many incidents that qualify as crimes against humanity, or possibly genocide if taken together, by the Rwandan army, which was hunting down rebel Hutus.

At the time of the report's release, the genocide suggestion angered Rwandan officials. Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo called it "flawed and dangerous from start to finish."

A message left with the Rwandan Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Friday. The U.S. Department of State had no immediate comment on the possible charges against Erlinder.

Erlinder said his prosecution could have larger implications: If defense attorneys aren't immune from prosecution by Kagame's government, U.N. tribunal defendants won't be able to get any meaningful representation.

"It means all the defense counsel for the U.N. tribunal have got to say, 'How do we do our job?' They have to go to Rwanda, and their investigators have to go to Rwanda," he said. "How can the tribunal function? It's almost impossible."