NAIROBI, Jun 18 (HANA)--The United Nations criminal tribunal for Rwanda has made tremendous progress in the prosecution of 1994 genocide suspects since its inception 10 years ago, officials said on Monday.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) spokesman Roland Amoussouga told a news conference in Nairobi that the tribunal expects to double the number of completed trials by the end of next year, leaving only a handful of trials remaining involving detainees in its custody.
Amoussouga said the Arusha-based ICTR has so far issued judgments in the cases of 33 people with more judgments expected soon in the cases of five other persons.
Trials involving 22 further accused are also in progress and nine detainees await their trial, adding that the prosecutor has proposed to request the transfer of a maximum of three of them to national jurisdictions mostly to Rwanda and Netherlands.
“The ICTR has done good work since is started prosecuting its first case in 1997. The progress has been achieved despite challenging environment,” Amoussouga told journalists in Nairobi.
“Some of the key challenges we are facing is how to find countries willing to take the acquitted persons and ICTR convicts once they have completed serving their sentences,” he said.
As part of these efforts, Amoussouga said the ICTR Registrar plans to travel to Ghana, Togo and Benin to discuss matters of cooperation and judicial assistance with the governments of those countries,” he said.
He said that ICTR is expected to finish the trials and judgments in the cases of 65 to 70 people by December 2008 when the tribunal is expected to conclude its work as mandated by the UN Security Council.
“Judgments have been delivered in the first instance in respect of third-three persons. Judgment in another sing-accused case is expected soon. The hearing of evidence in one multi-accused trial involving four accused has concluded,” he said.
He said many cases are extremely time-consuming, in part because of their legal and factual complexity and because of the difficulty of ensuring that witnesses are always available.
He said the ICTR President Erik Mose is expected to present the progress report to the UN Security Council late Monday on its efforts to meet the Council-imposed completion strategy.
Under the completion strategy, that is the date by when both the ICTR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up in the mid-1990s, are supposed to complete all of their trials, excluding appeals. All work is scheduled to be completed by 2010.
“The ICTR judges are confident they would meet the deadline set by the UN Security Council of completing the trial by 2008. We are proud of our work because if ICTR would not have been established, there would have been no peace in Rwanda,” said. Amoussouga
“The Tribunal is committed to bringing to justice those persons who were most responsible for genocide and violations of international humanitarian law that were committed in Rwanda in 1994,” he said.
Amoussouga noted that the ICTR “will also leave a legacy of international jurisprudence that can guide future courts and deter the future commission of these grave crimes.”
“Out of 90 genocide suspects, we have managed to arrest 72 suspects who are behind bars. As you know, the ICTR does not have arrest powers but only depend on national governments to arrest the fugitives,” Amoussouga said.
“The tribunal has reached its crucial stage and on the basis of information available, it is estimated that by the end of 2008, the tribunal would have completed trials involving 65 to 70 persons,” he said.
He said eighteen indicted persons remain at large, and that Tribunal prosecutors plan to request the transfer of most of these persons to national jurisdictions for trial.
He said the bulk of the cases would be transferred to Rwanda which is one of the country’s with experience in prosecuting genocide cases. Enditem
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