Special Court for Sierra Leone, RUF Trial, Update 103-104
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RUF TRIAL REPORT: AUGUSTINE GBAO DEFENSE CASE-IN-CHIEF JUNE 2 - JUNE 24, 2008 Jack Bouboushian Researcher & Trial Monitor, UC Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center Special Court for Sierra Leone Trial Monitoring Program 12 August 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Executive Summary 1 (a) Introduction (b) Overview and Roadmap (c) Key Findings II. The Gbao Defense’s Opening Statement III. Witness Profiles (a) Insider Witnesses, Civilian and Non-Civilian (b) Crime Base and Anecdotal Witnesses (c) Expert Witnesses IV. Major Themes in Witness Testimony (a) The RUF’s Command Structure and Gbao’s Role in It (i) Overview of the RUF’s Command Structure (ii) Gbao’s Responsibility as Overall IDU Commander and the RUF’s Internal Policing of War Crimes (iii) Gbao’s Responsibility as Overall Security Commander (b) The Puzzling Case of the Makeni Crime Base (c) Two Large-Scale War Crimes: The Massacre of the Sixty-Five Kamajors and the UNAMSIL Incident (i) The Massacre of the Sixty-Five Kamajors (ii) The UNAMSIL Incident (d) The Prevalence and Patterns of RUF War Crimes (i) Examples of Incongruent Witness Testimony on War Crimes (ii) Patterns of Violence or Random Occurrences? (e) War Crimes Perpetrated by Non-RUF Actors (i) Liberian Gios as the Primary RUF-Connected Perpetrators of Human Rights Abuses (ii) CDF/Kamajor, ECOMOG, and GOSL Attacks on Civilians (f) Gbao’s Personal Character and Relations with Other RUF Members (g) Gbao’s Individual Responsibility for War Crimes (h) The Role of RUF Ideology in the War (i) Non-Evidentiary Notes on Witness Testimony and Credibility V. Testimony Elicited on Cross-Examination (a) Sesay Defense’s Cross-Examination (b) Prosecution’s Cross-Examination VI. Witness Protection Issues VII. Legal and Procedural Issues (a) Potential Conflict of Interests between Gbao and Second Accused Morris Kallon Related to the UNAMSIL Incident (b) Court Rejects Gbao Defense’s Motion to Stay Proceedings (c) Prosecution Objections to the Expert Testimony of General Hederstedt (d) Cammegh’s Insistence that Prosecution Must Have Evidentiary Grounds for Cross-Examination Questions (e) Prosecution and Bench Objections to Cammegh’s Questions on Re- Examination VIII. Court Management Issues: Punctuality, Stenographic Accuracy, and Administrative Tensions IX. General Conclusions i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council AFRC case, The case against the three accused alleged to be members of the AFRC at the AFRC trial Special Court for Sierra Leone (Prosecutor v. Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu). CDF Civil Defence Forces CDF case, The case against the three senior members of the CDF at the Special Court for CDF trial Sierra Leone (Prosecutor v. Sam Hinga Norman, Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa). Defense The defense teams for all three accused in the RUF trial. DDR camps Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration camps set up by UNAMSIL in the latter years of the war. ECOMOG The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group. GOSL Government of Sierra Leone G5 One of the RUF’s joint security units IDU Internal Defense Unit, one of the RUF’s joint security units IO Intelligence Office, one of the RUF’s joint security units Indictment Prosecutor v. Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao (SCSL-04-15-T), Amended Indictment, 2 August 2006. JCE Joint Criminal Enterprise JSBI Joint Security Board of Investigations MP Military Police, one of the RUF’s joint security units OSC Overall Security Commander OTP Office of the Prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone RPE Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Special Court for Sierra Leone RUF Revolutionary United Front RUF case, The case against the three accused RUF members soon to be completed at the RUF trial Special Court for Sierra Leone (Prosecutor v. Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao). SBU Small Boys Unit SCSL, the Special Court for Sierra Leone Court SLA Sierra Leonean Army UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone WACs Women in Armed Conflict ii I. Executive Summary (a) Introduction This report offers a thematic overview and analysis of the evidentiary, legal, procedural, and court management issues that arose during the final session of the Revolutionary United Front (“RUF”) trial,1 during which the Defense for third accused Augustine Gbao presented its case- in-chief. Taken together with similar reports provided by the War Crimes Studies Center during the past four years,2 it hopes to constitute a helpful record to those who would like to compare each side’s recently-completed final briefs and arguments, as well as the Court’s forthcoming judgment, to the evidence presented. Researchers interested in issues ranging from the evidentiary to the procedural to the administrative will also find it useful. Although the Gbao Defense case was not lengthy, the evidence provided therein has important implications for the RUF trial as a whole (and indeed, the historical record of the war that the Court is creating). As a preliminary note, this report employs a somewhat unorthodox citation format via which well over 400 footnotes have been condensed to almost half that number, such that oftentimes, a single footnote provides references for the content of the entire foregoing paragraph. This decision is not only stylistic, but also practical, as researchers seeking direction towards passages of the transcripts relevant to particular subjects (e.g. a given witness’s background or the RUF’s basic command structure) will be better served by being given a list of references to several such passages, as opposed to individual references to minor components of broad subjects (e.g. the history of an individual security unit). Additionally, no substantial witness testimony was given in closed session, such that this report covers all of the Gbao Defense’s evidence. (b) Overview and Roadmap This report begins with a summary of the Gbao Defense team’s opening statement, which touched on many of the broader issues raised by the Defense throughout the trial, including rebukes of former Chief Prosecutor David Crane’s florid opening statement and the broad scope of the Indictment.3 It then provides brief profiles of all eight defense witnesses and the subjects covered extensively in the testimony of each. For brevity’s sake, it uses only acronyms and shorthand titles; further information is contained in the Witness Testimony section and the above List of Abbreviations. Section IV, the heart of the report, discusses the Gbao Defense case’s major themes approximately in order of significance, with an additional eye to logical progression (e.g. from overall command structure to Gbao’s own rank). Sub-section (a) covers the privileges and responsibilities Gbao held in his two posts, (b) considers the somewhat different picture of these 1 Prosecutor v. Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao (SCSL-04-15-T). All transcripts available online at http://www.sc-sl.org/RUF-transcripts.html. 2 All other trial reports available online at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/SL.htm. Also, for more narrative- style summaries of individual witness testimony in the Gbao Defense case, see the Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Program’s weekly trial reports, available online at http://www.slcmp.org/drwebsite/reports/index.shtml. 3 See Prosecutor v Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao, (SCSL-04-15-T), Amended Indictment, 2 August 2006, paragraphs 36 and 37 (hereafter, “Indictment”). Available online at http://www.sc- sl.org/Documents/RUF/SCSL-04-15-T-619.pdf. 1 responsibilities that emerged from testimony on Gbao’s time in Makeni, (c) summarizes testimony on two of the most significant war crimes that the Prosecution charges Gbao with in the Indictment, (d) and (e) broadly consider testimony on crimes committed during the war, (f) touches on Gbao’s character and relations with other RUF members, (g) on his individual responsibility for war crimes, (h) on the role of RUF ideology in the war, and (i) on some remaining credibility and consistency aspects. Each sub-section of Section IV includes some degree of analysis of the evidence’s coherence and consistency, much of which is summarized the key findings in Section I(c) below. Of course, there is a good deal of thematic overlap among these sections, and many of the divisions between them are somewhat arbitrary. For example, to understand how much command responsibility Gbao actually had during the war (covered in sub-section (a)), one must understand his possible roles in the UNAMSIL incident (covered in sub-section (d)). Moreover, it is crucial to emphasize that many statements made somewhat nonchalantly in this report (e.g. regarding the command hierarchy of the RUF) have actually been hotly contested over the course of the RUF trial. However, the report’s primary purpose is to relate the evidence presented by the Gbao Defense, not to analyze its full implications for the rest of the case or weigh it against the Prosecution’s case. In other words, to each sub-section under “Witness Testimony,” I would append the qualifier “according to Gbao’s defense.” Section V briefly runs down the issues that arose during cross-examination by the Prosecution and Sesay Defense. Particularly important issues regarding the witness’s evidence and credibility are often additionally discussed in Section IV or referred to in its notes. As the primary purpose of this report is relating the evidence presented during the Gbao Defense case, testimony elicited during Defense cross-examination is summarized primarily to enable readers interested in the Sesay and Kallon cases to locate relevant testimony. Counsel for Morris Kallon declined to cross-examine any witnesses and formally closed the Kallon Defense on June 6th.4 The report goes on to discuss important witness protection issues, legal and procedural issues, and court management issues that came up during the case.