Case No. ICTR-96-4-T - International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Chamber found that for the Defence to raise only doubts as to the credibility of thestatements made by the witness was not sufficient to establish strong grounds forbelieving that the witness may have knowingly and wilfully given false testimony, andthat the assessment of credibility pertains to the rendering of the final judgment.140. The majority of the witnesses who appeared before the Chamber were eyewitnesses,whose testimonies were based on events they had seen or heard in relation tothe acts alleged in the Indictment. The Chamber noted that during the trial, for a numberof these witnesses, there appeared to be contradictions or inaccuracies between, on theone hand, the content of their testimonies under solemn declaration to the Chamber, andon the other, their earlier statements to the Prosecutor and the Defence. This alone is not aground for believing that the witnesses gave false testimony. Indeed, an often leviedcriticism of testimony is its fallibility. Since testimony is based mainly on memory andsight, two human characteristics which often deceive the individual, this criticism is to beexpected. Hence, testimony is rarely exact at to the events experienced. To deduce fromany resultant contradictions and inaccuracies that there was false testimony, would beakin to criminalising frailties in human perceptions. Moreover, inaccuracies andcontradictions between the said statements and the testimony given before the Court arealso the result of the time lapse between the two. Memory over time naturallydegenerates, hence it would be wrong and unjust for the Chamber to treat forgetfulness asbeing synonymous with giving false testimony. Moreover, false testimony requires thenecessary mens rea and not a mere wrongful statement.141. Were the Chamber to have strong grounds for believing that the witness hadknowingly and wilfully given false testimony, with the intent to impede the due processof Justice, then Rule 91 of the Rules would be applied accordingly.The impact of trauma on the testimony of witnesses142. Many of the eye-witnesses who testified before the Chamber in this case have seenatrocities committed against their family members or close friends, and/or havethemselves been the victims of such atrocities. The possible traumatism of thesewitnesses caused by their painful experience of violence during the conflict in Rwanda isa matter of particular concern to the Chamber. The recounting of this traumaticexperience is likely to evoke memories of the fear and the pain once inflicted on thewitness and thereby affect his or her ability fully or adequately to recount the sequence ofevents in a judicial context. The Chamber has considered the testimony of thosewitnesses in this light.143. The Chamber is unable to exclude the possibility that some or all of these witnessesdid actually suffer from post traumatic or extreme stress disorders, and has thereforecarefully perused the testimonies of these witnesses, those of the Prosecutor as well asthose of the Defence, on the assumption that this might possibly have been the case.Inconsistencies or imprecisions in the testimonies, accordingly, have been assessed in thelight of this assumption, personal background and the atrocities they have experienced orhave been subjected to. Much as the Witness Protection Programme and the orders for