Prosecutors in the trial of a Rwandan-born Porvoo resident who is accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have called into question the need to hear testimony from all of the witnesses named by the defence.
The defendant, Francois Bazraramba, was present at the court on Monday for the first time in over a month. The court had just come back from Rwanda, where it had been for about a month, hearing testimony from witnesses named by the prosecution. Bazaramba followed the trial by video link from Vantaa.
The prosecution maintains that some of the defence witnesses are being summoned to testify to matters that are not under dispute. The defence wants to hear witnesses’ accounts of Bazaramba did at a Rwandan refugee camp housing Hutus who had escaped from neighbouring Burundi.
Prosecutors are willing to accept that certain defence witnesses have not seen any military training taking place in the camps. However, they feel that this does not mean that no such training ever took place.
The defence wants to call all relevant witnesses to testify, if the court will allow it. Presiding judge Lars Karlsson said that the court cannot determine in advance that any witness would be unnecessary. “I have no such skills of a soothsayer”, he said.
The defence does not know if it can even get all of the witnesses it wants to testify. Defence lawyer Ingrid Heickell. The witnesses are asylum seekers who have fled Rwanda, and do not trust that they would be safe if they came to Finland.
The court is considering hearing defence witness testimony in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Most of the proposed defence witnesses live in countries bordered by Tanzania.
No final decisions have been made on any possible trip to Tanzania.
