African Church Information Service
Correspondent
5 May 2003
Kigali — The first phase of release of genocide detainees, which started in January, has come to an end.
According to government figures, 25,029 detainees out of about 112,000 in the country's detention facilities were released in this phase, which ended April 30.
The releases are provisional, and all detainees still have to face the traditional community-based courts known as gacaca.
Even as the detainees walked out of prison doors, many gacaca officials complained of having been sidelined in the decision to free the prisoners, and that this had opened up wounds of genocide.
About one million Rwandese were brutally killed in 1994 at the peak of conflict between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic communities.
"Many of those directly involved in gacaca proceedings (Plaintiff, Magistrates and community members) are troubled because the decision to release prisoners was made without consulting them, and has in many cases stirred up feelings of trauma," says a statement form Amnesty International.
The detainees released include those who have confessed to participating in the genocide, those whose case files do not contain sufficient evidence to warrant their detention, and pre-trial detainees who have spent more time in detention than they would if convicted for crimes they allegedly committed.
Their release followed a presidential decree issued on January 1, granting provisional freedom to a projected 49,376 detainees.
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