KIGALI, Rwanda — A Rwandan judge today turned down a bail application by an American lawyer charged with denying Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and publishing articles that threaten the country’s security.
Peter Erlinder’s lawyers have not shown a link between his sickness and being in detention since his arrest May 28, their main argument for bail, said Judge Maurice Mbishibishi.
The judge said Erlinder can appeal the bail decision in five days time, but his lawyers said they are going to appeal it immediately in Rwanda’s High Court.
Erlinder was hospitalized last Tuesday. Rwandan police said Erlinder had tried to commit suicide but his family denied this.
On Friday Erlinder pleaded not guilty to the charges during his first court appearance since the arrest.
Erlinder was in Kigali helping with the legal defense of an opposition leader who wants to run for president in Aug. 9 elections.
Erlinder — a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn. — has a reputation for taking on difficult, often unpopular defendants and causes. A past president of the progressive National Lawyers Guild, Erlinder leads a group of defense lawyers at the U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is trying the alleged leaders of the 1994 genocide.
The genocide claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The massacres ended when mostly Tutsi rebels led by President Paul Kagame defeated the mostly Hutu extremist perpetrators.
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