Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
29 April 2004
Arusha — The Rwandan Government has officially complained to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda about its delay in handing over convicts to serve sentences in Rwanda.
The Tribunal was established by the UN to prosecute those responsible for the Rwandan genocide between January and December 1994. It has already convicted 18 persons and acquitted three. Six of those convicted have been serving their sentences in Mali since December 2001. "We are concerned about the ICTR's refusal until now to bring some of the convicts to Rwanda despite the fact that the statute of the court provides for that," said Rwanda's Deputy Attorney General Martin Ngoga.
The Tribunal's statute provides that imprisonment by ICTR convicts shall be served in Rwanda or any state which has indicated their willingness to the UN Security Council. Ngoga told Hirondelle that the Rwandan Government wrote to the ICTR last week complaining about the delay. "They are denying us our statutory right. We don't think this will help reconciliation at all," Ngoga added. Up until now none of those convicted has been transferred to Rwanda.
On Tuesday Sweden signed an agreement with the ICTR to enforce its sentences. It became the sixth country to do so. The others are Mali, Swaziland, Benin, Italy, and France.
Ngoga said the Rwandan Government welcomes agreements on enforcement of sentences done in good faith. But he added that some countries have signed them with "sinister motives". And he accused some countries of being incapable of supervising enforcement of ICTR sentences, citing Mali as an example.
"We think Mali has lost control over prisoners detained there. We have reports that some [prisoners] now construct there own cells. We also know that some prisoners have been taken out of prison to go and make [telephone] calls from outside. They have also been allowed access to the media to address the audience here [in Rwanda]." Ngoga said.
During the recent tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, the BBC and the French news agency (AFP) obtained interviews with prisoners in Mali including the former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda.
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