Rwanda tribunal lawyers investigated for fee-splitting

United Nations investigators have uncovered evidence that some lawyers defending suspects at the international war crimes tribunal for Rwanda may be providing financial inducements to win clients.

A UN report by the Office of International Oversight Services says lawyers paid by the UN to defend poor Rwandans at the tribunal, in Tanzania, have given detainees expensive gifts, such as computers, video cassette recorders and a gold watch.

The lawyers had also provided financial support to detainees' families, extending in some cases to employing suspects' friends or relatives as case investigators none of whom had gone to Rwanda to collect information.

The report -- which also looked into similar allegations about the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- said such actions suggested an informal system of fee-splitting by lawyers, although there was no direct substantiation of such arrangements. The report quoted some lawyers at the tribunal of complaining that their clients had pressured them for money or an outright share of the legal fees.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service