The Communication and Information Technology Section (CITS) was responsible for the Special Court’s IT infrastructure, which included the telephones, the setting-up and maintenance of the Court’s computer network, and the satellite streaming of proceedings at The Hague to Freetown, VTC for teleconferences and the contempt trials with participants in Freetown, Kigali, The Hague, and the USA.
Since its inception in Freetown, CITS developed electronic processes for the collection and storage of evidence, court management, electronic filing, live video streaming and the multitude of other custom built back-end services which allowed up to 500 Court personnel to carry out their duties effectively in a challenging environment.
Throughout its history, CITS successfully deployed a secure network infrastructure at the Special Court’s 11.5-acre site in Freetown. The site comprised two courtrooms, a detention facility, and a suite of offices. CITS established and operated a reliable telephone network and, to facilitate the communication process further, installed a radio VHF network with microwave links to Sierratel, the national telecommunications parastatal, and the United Nations.
The Audio-Visual Unit within CITS was responsible for recording the Special Court trials in Freetown and in The Hague.
For the Taylor trial, the CITS set up and managed the IT infrastructure at the Special Court’s sub-office in The Hague, and participated in setting up a dual court technology, allowing the same courtroom to be used by two different tribunals.
CITS also assisted the Court Management Section in setting up an archiving system to be used by the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone.
