Trial Attorney At UN Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal Resigns
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said today that a trial attorney in the
Prosecutor's Office has resigned after apparently failing to disclose criminal charges made against him two years before
he joined the court.
The prosecutor, Bongani Dyani, of South Africa, turned in his resignation from the Prosecutor's Office on 1 June, just
days after the Tribunal began looking into allegations that he had been charged with attempted murder and robbery in
2001, the Tribunal said in a statement.
Mr. Dyani obtained his employment at the Prosecutor's Office "by lying and falsifying information," the statement said,
strongly condemning his conduct.
Mr. Dyani was formerly employed by the National Prosecuting Authority of the Republic of South Africa as a Public
Prosecutor stationed at Zwelitsha, a magisterial district in the Province of the Eastern Cape.
On Wednesday 25 May 2005, the Office of the Prosecutor received a letter from the Deputy National Director of the
National Prosecuting Authority of the Republic of South Africa, drawing the attention of the ICTR to the fact that in
2001, the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Republic of South Africa under whose direct control and supervision Mr.
Dyani fell, had instituted criminal proceedings against him (and his co-accused who has since died) in the Regional
Court in East London in the Province of the Eastern Cape.
Because of the seriousness of these allegations against Mr. Dyani, his delegation to prosecute was withdrawn by the
Director of Public Prosecutions pending the outcome of the criminal prosecution. In the face of the allegations, and
after the withdrawal of his delegation to prosecute, Mr. Dyani resigned from the National Prosecuting Authority as a
Public Prosecutor.
At the time of his recruitment late in 2003, Mr. Dyani had declared to the Tribunal in writing that he had neither been
arrested nor charged, nor convicted of any crime. He had also failed to disclose that his authority as a prosecutor in
South Africa had been withdrawn, the ICTR said.
Mr. Dyani was specifically asked to state whether the allegations were true and to explain why he had not disclosed them
in his application for the vacancy in 2003. He was asked to provide a written response by Monday, 30 May 2005, but
failed to do so, the ICTR added.