POLITICS: U.N. War Crimes Courts Embroiled in Corruption Charges

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 2002 (IPS) - The United Nations’ two war crimes tribunals are being investigated for fraud and bribery involving staff, lawyers, and defendants.

Registrar Adama Dieng of the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said Monday he has initiated disciplinary action against a staff member who was found to have taken kickbacks from defence lawyers in order to process their payments expeditiously.

Hans Holthuis, registrar of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTFY), said he is reviewing the case of a detainee who was found to have purchased real estate while in detention — although he claimed he was “indigent” and therefore entitled to defence counsel at the tribunal’s expense.

Meanwhile, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the U.N.’s in-house investigative arm, is probing possible “fee-splitting” between defence lawyers and so-called indigent detainees at both tribunals.

The tribunals were created by the U.N. Security Council to prosecute persons responsible for genocide and war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The ICTFY was established in May 1993, the ICTR in November 1994.

One of the key trials before the ICTFY is the prosecution of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. In the ICTR, virtually the entire interim government of Rwanda awaits trial. The people currently in custody in Arusha include government ministers and military leaders.

Two key Serbs accused of war crimes, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain at large.

By statutory authority, suspects and accused persons in both tribunals are entitled to have legal assistance and, if deemed to be “indigent” by the registrars, to have counsel assigned to them. The legal fees and costs for the counsel are to be borne by the tribunals.

The fees received by defence counsel teams are substantial. In 1999, the two tribunals paid a total of about 8.5 million dollars to defence counsel members. The estimated figures for 2000 and 2001 were over 10 million dollars each for the two tribunals.

According to OIOS, fees for services vary depending on the defence team and in one case exceeded 300,000 dollars.

Several defence counsels assigned at both tribunals have either been solicited and/or have accepted requests for fee-splitting arrangements made to them by their respective clients.

Some defence teams in Arusha have made arrangements for gifts to their clients and their clients’ relatives. According to OIOS, these gifts included clothing, computer and audio equipment, video players and television sets.

One detainee was given two computers, a gold watch and eight radios in return for retaining a particular lawyer as his defence counsel.

The OIOS team also discovered that one detainee, adjudged to be “indigent”, was living with an array of sophisticated and expensive computer, audio and video equipment

A review of the log of gifts received by the detainees confirmed the nature of the gifts received and identity of donors of such gifts.

“Fee-splitting is not an easy practice to eradicate because its possibility involves confidential discussions and arrangements between a defence counsel and his client,” the two Registrars said.

The registrar in Arusha recently fired a defence counsel for financial misconduct, including inflation of legal bills and claims for work that was not done.

Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. war crimes ambassador, told a Congressional committee last week that the professionalism of some personnel in U.N. tribunals “has been called into question with allegations of mismanagement and abuse.”

Prosper said the United States wants both tribunals to wind up their work by 2007-2008.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said: “I don’t think the intention of the international community is to shut down the tribunals before all of the principals are brought to trial.”

He said he was specifically referring to Karadzic and Mladic. “I understand there are renewed efforts to apprehend these people and to bring them to trial,” he added.

Eckhard said the discussions taking place concering a cut-off date for the tribunals are sensible.

“I think they will not allow these tribunals to go on forever. They are costly. Of course, the main work won’t be done until, in addition to President Milosevic, who is on trial now, we also bring to trial Karadzic and Mladic.”