Today we received an update from Clinton School student Cory Biggs on his work this summer with the Rwandan Judiciary in Kigali, Rwanda. A concurrent MPS/JD student with the Clinton School and UALR law school, Biggs is working to lessen government corruption in Rwanda by researching and determining ways to reduce the impact of misconduct or negligence of official duties among public servants.
Biggs reports that he witnessed a bail hearing for Peter Elinder, a U.S. law professor who has gained international attention after his arrest on charges of “genocide ideology.” Biggs explains the case below:
Things are going pretty well with my project – researching ways to combat corruption for the Supreme Court of Rwanda. We (my fellow interns and I) occasionally get to sit in on hearings of the Supreme Court. On Monday, for instance, we sat in on a hearing on a constitutional matter. Very cool.
One particular point of interest: Last week, my colleagues and I went to the Rwanda High Court in Nyamirambo to observe a bail hearing for American attorney and law professor Peter Erlinder. Prof. Erlinder has been an outspoken critic of the Rwandan government and has served as defense counsel before the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for several of those accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
This spring, he came to Rwanda to defend Victoire Ingabire, a political opponent of President Paul Kagame, on charges that she had engaged in the crime of “genocide ideology,” because she had criticized the official version of the events of the 1994 genocide. On May 28 — just a few days after I arrived in Rwanda — Erlinder was arrested in Kigali on the same charges. He had been imprisoned since that time, amidst outcry from the U.S. government as well as the governments of many other Western nations.
Last Thursday, a judge determined that Prof. Erlinder, who has been in and out of the hospital on several occasions since his arrest, was in such poor health that he should be released from jail. While his actions are still being investigated, and he may be asked to return to Rwanda in the future to respond to charges against him, he has since left the country to receive medical treatment.
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