The case for the prosecution and the defence

Phil Quin writes a very strong article in Stuff laying out the case against Golriz Ghahraman. Quin has actually worked in Rwanda for three years.

At the bottom of the article you can read Ghahraman's response to the Quin article, and decide for yourself whether you think the case for or against her is stronger.

There is also a separate article on Stuff with the headline “Golriz Ghahraman explains smiling photo with convicted genocide perpetrator” and again people can make up their own mind how convinced they are. One thing of note in the article:

Green Party leader James Shaw has also stood up for her, saying the accusations were “a political hit-job”

This is the defence you run when you don't have a defence. Quin is a left wing activist who has worked for Labour. Anyone who knows him knows he is passionate about what happened in Rwanda. He has many friends in Rwanda. To dismiss what he says as a political hit-job is unworthy.

Other defenders of Ghahraman keep trying to muddy the waters by saying that the system needs defence counsels and all she was doing is acting as a lawyer should.

Here's the correct analogy.

There's nothing wrong with being defence counsel for a despicable person such as say Clayton Weatherston. Two very fine lawyers were his defence counsels and they were just doing their jobs. They even got hugged by Sophie Elliott's mother after the verdict.

But what if one of those lawyers stood for Parliament and their official website described them as “acquired the confidence to study criminal law at Oxford University, and, later, to stand up in court representing the Crown in courts prosecuting some of the New Zealand's worst killers, including Clayton Weatherston.”

And what if multiple articles had appeared stating she had prosecuted Clayton Weatherston, when in fact she had defended him, and she never sought to correct them. And what if her Wikipedia page repeated the lie she had defended Clayton Weatherston and it was only corrected after the election.

And finally what if she had posted to photos of her smiling and posing for a selfie with Clayton Weatherston.

Then of course there would be outrage and condemnation. Not for being a defence lawyer. But for everything else.

UPDATE: Also worth reading this piece by Barry Soper:

In her interview with the Herald that stirred up the hornets' nest she said she met a defence lawyer working for the Rwandan Tribunal and he invited her over saying they needed a lawyer at the coalface. She volunteered as an intern and now conveniently can't remember whether she was assigned to one side or the other!

In the latest batch of fudge delivered she was asked whether she'd ever posed with a war criminal, she stammered before saying, no, but admitting to a defence photo with her team in court, saying everybody did. She said it'd be bizarre to say you'd go off as an intern and refuse to sit with you team in a photo.

Well a series of photos have been sent to me, one showing her posing alone with a former pop singer called Simon Bikindi who was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 15 years in jail for incitement to commit genocide. He was found guilty after exhorting, over a public address system, his fellow Hutus to exterminate all the Tutsis whom he referred to as snakes.

Confronted with the photo she now says her commitment's innocent until proven guilty but she can understand how the photo could be seen by some as jarring. But being involved in the process, she insisted, she wasn't going to go down the rabbit hole and treat him as a lesser human being and he deserved a fair trial.

Other photos showed her on a United Nations private jet, another sitting with a UN investigator and a prosecution intern at a cafe, extolling the virtues of the Guinness brewed in Rwanda.

Trying to get her to discuss the photos wasn't easy. She initially agreed, before the lead Greens wagon occupied by a spin doctor intervened insisting on the information being flicked though to her first. When the offer was declined she simply said, okay, we'll just leave it then.

But a few hours later they had a change of heart, at least that's a step in the right direction.

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