Witnesses ‘bribed’ in war crimes trials

Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: June 04. 2008 12:31AM UAE / June 3. 2008 8:31PM GMT

FREETOWN // Witnesses are being paid to testify against alleged war criminals at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, undermining the credibility of their testimonies and the court itself, defence lawyers said.

“I’ve got no doubt that, in this court, payments have induced witnesses to testify and to testify falsely. It’s completely perverted the testimony,” Wayne Jordash, a defence lawyer, told The National.

Mr Jordash, who is lead council to Issa Sesay, a former rebel leader, has filed a motion asking the trial chamber to investigate payments made by the prosecution’s witness management unit.

Stephen Rapp, the lead prosecutor, called the allegations “spurious”.

“Payments are provided for appropriate expenses incurred by witnesses,” he said. “Full disclosure is made in each of those payments.”

The witness unit is allowed to pay for necessary expenses, including safety measures, only while investigating a potential witness. Once the person is deemed a witness, the unit must hand responsibility over to the court’s witnesses and victims section (WVS).

Mr Rapp said the prosecution has not violated this arrangement.

But Mr Jordash said he has collected numerous examples showing that the unit continued to make payments to witnesses after investigations were completed.

For example, his motion refers to one witness who was taken on “regular Sunday trips, including a Sunday luncheon appointment to an expensive restaurant”.

“How could a reasonable person say it was necessary to take a witness to an expensive restaurant for an investigation?” Mr Jordash said.

He added that the witness management unit had no right to pay for the witness’ expenses in any case, since the witness was in the care of the WVS at that point.

Mr Rapp claimed that officials in that section approached the prosecution.

“We had a situation where WVS asked us to take charge of a person locked up in a safe house and going crazy and take them out for Sunday drives,” he said.

Mr Jordash denied that was the case. He said he made inquiries with WVS officials and Naeem Ahmed, the deputy chief of the WVS, told him the witness management unit had in fact approached WVS.

Mr Jordash tried to bring Mr Ahmed in to the courtroom for testimony on June 20 2007, but the judges threw out his request, according to court transcripts.

The defence’s motion includes numerous other examples it claims are “improper benefits and inducements (or payments) to witnesses in order to obtain testimony”.

One prosecution witness received payments of US$400 (Dh1,500) for “communications, top-up cards” for mobile phones. Another was given a total of $2,623 for “maintenance”, “clothing and luggage”, “meals” and “purchase of fuel” during one week in Dec 2002.

Yet another witness, John Tarnue, a former Liberian general, was relocated with his family at great expense to an undisclosed country after testifying against leaders of the Revolutionary United Front.

Mr Tarnue, according to Mr Jordash, was portrayed as the “right-hand man” of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president now on trial in The Hague for his role in backing the RUF.

The RUF fought Sierra Leone over control of the country’s vast diamond wealth. Mr Tarnue testified that he knew the former RUF leaders on trial in Freetown had exchanged diamonds for guns from Liberia.

Mr Jordash claimed the testimony was tainted by Mr Tarnue’s knowledge that he would be rewarded for providing evidence against the accused.

“The country he went to was prosperous,” Mr Jordash said. “A new life and a much better life was for the taking.”

Mr Rapp, the lead prosecutor, pointed out that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has paid upwards of $200,000 to relocate witnesses and their families after testimonies that could endanger them.

“These are the kinds of things we deal with when talking about insiders who are bringing down people who killed thousands of people,” he said. “We have to get these people out of harm’s way.”

The cost of providing security and relocating such witnesses is higher than it is for less important witnesses, Mr Rapp said. “They are going to receive more payments, because they may be at greater risk.”

For Mr Jordash, this poses an “offensive” irony – commanders who took part in atrocities, who could be subject to criminal charges themselves, are being rewarded for their testimonies.

“Something has gone deeply wrong,” he said. “The one group of people who are benefiting without a doubt are the mid-ranking commanders.”

He said the evidence of improper payments provided in his motion is “just the tip of the iceberg” and he encouraged the court to investigate the matter fully.

He was, however, sceptical, about the possibility of an inquiry. “It will never happen with this court because there are too many vested interests. The international community and funders have too much at stake to allow the trials to be stopped.”

He pointed to the United Nations, as well as countries who provide funding for the court, including the United States, Canada and Britain.

“These are political courts,” he said. “It’s impossible to keep politics from creeping in.”

jferrie@thenational.ae