Embassy didn't aid jailed US lawyer
Source: Agencies |
June 21, 2010, Monday
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A United States lawyer released from a Rwanda prison on medical grounds credited America's Secretary of State with his release but said yesterday the US Embassy did not help him secure food or medicine while in prison.
Peter Erlinder, 62, said he had to sleep on a concrete floor without a blanket and without assistance from the embassy after his May 28 arrest in Kigali, Rwanda's capital. The Minnesota law professor thanked US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying Rwanda shouldn't arrest lawyers but said embassy officials in Kigali and Nairobi have not helped much.
"My government insisted that I take my medications from my captors rather than bringing me medications directly," Erlinder said. "It was impossible for them to arrange a doctor whom I would pay so that I wouldn't have to get my food and my medication from my captors."
A Rwandan judge ruled on Thursday that Erlinder, a lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, should be freed from prison on medical grounds. Erlinder did not explain his health problems and declined to comment on his statements in a Rwandan court that he had attempted suicide in prison.
Erlinder has not been charged, but Rwandan authorities detained him on suspicion of what it calls minimizing the country's genocide.
More than 500,000 Rwandans died during the genocide, but Erlinder has said there may be enough evidence to show that more ethnic Hutus died than Tutsis, a statement that could anger the government of President Paul Kagame.
Peter Erlinder, 62, said he had to sleep on a concrete floor without a blanket and without assistance from the embassy after his May 28 arrest in Kigali, Rwanda's capital. The Minnesota law professor thanked US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying Rwanda shouldn't arrest lawyers but said embassy officials in Kigali and Nairobi have not helped much.
"My government insisted that I take my medications from my captors rather than bringing me medications directly," Erlinder said. "It was impossible for them to arrange a doctor whom I would pay so that I wouldn't have to get my food and my medication from my captors."
A Rwandan judge ruled on Thursday that Erlinder, a lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, should be freed from prison on medical grounds. Erlinder did not explain his health problems and declined to comment on his statements in a Rwandan court that he had attempted suicide in prison.
Erlinder has not been charged, but Rwandan authorities detained him on suspicion of what it calls minimizing the country's genocide.
More than 500,000 Rwandans died during the genocide, but Erlinder has said there may be enough evidence to show that more ethnic Hutus died than Tutsis, a statement that could anger the government of President Paul Kagame.
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