Rwanda / International Tribunals

UN Tribunal Hands Over Files on Genocide Fugitives to Rwanda 
By Felly Kimenyi
Bloomberg.com, June 8, 2010
"A United Nations court set up to prosecute perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide handed over 25 case files to the Central African country for further investigation. The cases involve suspects still at large and for whom indictments have yet to be issued, Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said in a phone interview today from the capital, Kigali. The files were handed over to Rwanda by Boubacar Jallow, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The Tanzania-based court was set up in 1997 to try masterminds of the 100-day genocide, which followed the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the violence. The tribunal is due to complete its work by the end of next year.
'These are among the cases the prosecutor has been investigating, but due to the completion calendar, he decided to pass them over to us because the ICTR may not be able to pursue them further,' Ngoga said. Ibuka, a Kigali-based umbrella body that represents survivors of the genocide, welcomed today’s announcement, saying it demonstrated the confidence the tribunal has in the Rwandan justice system. 'There have been many fugitives arrested in different countries, but could not be extradited to Rwanda because the tribunal had set precedent that our judiciary could not be entrusted to handle these cases,' Ibuka President Theodore Simburudari said in a phone interview."
[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]