The long-awaited start of trials in the quasi-traditional gacaca courts in Rwanda will not happen before the end of the presidential and parliamentary elections, the Rwandan Supreme Court announced on Tuesday.

Since their opening a year ago, Gacaca courts have been in a pre-trial stage identifying victims and suspects of the genocide.

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in July or August this year. Parliamentary elections will take place a month later. The Supreme Court made the announcement after a meeting with the ministry of justice and the office of the prosecutor.

"There are a lot of activities going on at the moment. The attention of the population is on the elections", Charles Kayitana, the spokesperson of the Department for Gacaca jurisdictions in the Supreme Court told the independent news agency Hirondelle.

Kayitana also said that the suspension of activities would only affect courts that are moving into the trial stage. "Other courts that are still at pre-trial level will continue operating normally", he said.

At the launching of Gacaca courts last year, only 12 pilot projects were opened. 760 more started their work three months later. A total of about 10,000 courts are scheduled to be running when Gacaca starts nation-wide operations. This, according to the Supreme Court, will also happen after the elections.

Gacaca courts were established to speed up the trials of over 100,000 suspects then in custody for genocide and related crimes. Regular courts in Rwanda had failed to accommodate the cases. At the start of the courts, the Supreme Court estimated that it would take between three to five years to complete the trials of the suspects currently in custody. Despite several delays and postponements of different phases in the process, spokesperson Kayitana insisted that the courts would meet the three to five years deadline.

Kayitana also mentioned that about 40% of the 760 Gacaca courts currently operating were in their final step in the pre-trial process. The final step is the categorisation of suspects.