Hunt for Rwanda genocide fugitives intensified
Mechanism’s prosecutor Serge Brammetz. Photo|File
What you need to know:
The International Residual Mechanism which succeeded ICTR is in consultations with the Rwanda authorities ahead of intensified search for the remaining 1994 genocide fugitives.
Arusha. The hunt for the remaining fugitives of the 1994 Rwanda genocide will be intensified.
The UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) will this time around spearhead the campaign. Mechanism’s prosecutor Serge Brammetz and other senior officials of the facility are in Kigali to lay ground for renewed efforts in the hunt.
He is expected to meet Rwanda government officials including Justice minister Johnson Busingye to discuss the matter. “They will discuss the search for the remaining ICTR fugitives,” the prosecutor said in a statement here yesterday.
ICTR (the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), created by the UN in December 1995, was the one which indicted the Rwanda genocide perpetrators.
The facility, which operated from Arusha, was disbanded in December 2015 and its activities taken over by the Mechanism.
By the time it closed business nearly three years ago, the Tribunal (ICTR) had convicted 61 fugitives and acquitted 14 others.
Rwanda and other international observers have repeatedly expressed concern over the remaining perpetrators, some believed to be hiding within the region.
The Mechanism said yesterday that the prosecutor’s visit to Kigali yesterday and today (Friday) will lay ground for new strategies to execute the search. It is expected that the prosecutor will present his report on the same to the UN Security Council on December 11.
The renewed tracking down of the suspects comes only two weeks after a call by the Foreign Affairs minister Augustine Mahiga to pursue them whenever they may be.
The minister made the appeal in Arusha when officiating at the International Organisations Open Day event which attracted scores of UN bodies.
Among the eight most sought fugitives still at large is Felicien Kabuga, a former Rwandan businessman who has a $5 million price tag placed on his head.
The others are Pheneas Munyarugarama, Fulgence Kayishema, Charles Sikuwabo, Ladislaus Ntaganzwa, Alloyes Ndimbati and one Ryandikayo.
Nearly one million people were hacked to death during the 100 days of human slaughter in Rwanda from April 6th, 1994.
The killings followed the shooting down and subsequent death of the then Rwanda president Juvenal Habyarimana on arrival home at the Kigali airport.
