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ICTR Commends Country Progress on Prisoner-Transfer Preparation

The New Times (Kigali)
NEWS
April 24, 2007
Posted to the web April 25, 2007

By Felly Kimenyi
Kigali
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has commended the step
the Rwandan judiciary has taken in preparation for the transfer of cases from
ICTR to the national jurisdiction. This was revealed by Jean-Pele Fomete, an
ICTR Senior Legal Adviser with the tribunal who heads the taskforce on capacity
building, in a meeting that brought them together with their Rwandan
counterparts to assess the way forward on the transfers.
"It appears that we are at the eve of a major breakthrough which, if
successful, could allow Rwanda to show the way to go to many countries in
Africa and beyond in various aspects of the broader justice sector," Fomete
said during the meeting that took place at Hotel Novotel yesterday.
Fomete, who was delegated by the ICTR to represent them in the meeting, added
that a quick look at the available records indicates that both Rwanda and the
ICTR have done a lot so far pertaining to the transfers. In an interview with
Justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama, he said that this is the second meeting
that brings together the tribunal and the
Rwandan judiciary to assess the development of the transfers and to discuss
issues like the timeline into which this exercise will be carried out.
"It is in this forum that we expect to identify problems if any, that may
hamper the progress of the transfers," Karugarama said, adding, though, that
the timeline has not been designed yet. The first meeting took place in
November 2005. He was however optimistic that the transfers will be effected.
"We recently held extensive and valuable discussions with the ICTR Chief
Prosecutor (Boubakar Jallow) and it was evident from this discussion that the
transfer of cases to Rwanda is a matter of shared interest."
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Jallow was quoted saying that his office was set
to file the first motion of the transfer of the first cases by April, but as
the month draws towards the end, the motion has not been filed according to
Fomete.
Bar sidelined
The Kigali Bar association, however, has said that they have so far received
minimal assistance in terms of capacity building to the lawyers in preparation
for the transfers.
This was confirmed by the Kigali Bar Chairman Gatera Gashabana. "Initially, we
were sending our lawyers to the tribunal for capacity building but the exercise
was later stopped after it was established that the transfers, which were
supposed to kick off earlier this year, had been postponed," Gashabana said. He
added that it was very essential for the lawyers to get wind of what was taking
place at the tribunal, especially getting to know about International Law.
"Lawyers must also know about the functioning of the common law system under
which the transferred trials will be conducted." The Bar chair lamented the
fact that most bar members are French-speaking and should undergo training in
English, a fact that has not been given serious consideration.
"We also have the problem of the law establishing our society which has been a
matter of contention for the past year where the ministry has failed to
recognize it as an organic law and this may have serious implications," he
added.
The bill has been at the lower chamber of parliament for over a year after it
was contested by the learned fraternity because of some of the articles it
contained. He however said that he would present all these obstacles to the
meeting with a hope of getting a solution.
The transfer of cases from the ICTR to Rwanda came after the UN, which
instituted the Tanzania-based ad hoc tribunal, declared the expiration of its
mandate as December 2008.
Many countries have applied to receive those cases but Rwanda has been said to
be the favorites of them all after they fulfilled most of the requirements
including scraping of the death penalty over the suspects to be transferred.
Established in 1995, the backlogged tribunal has so far completed 33 cases, and
of these, 6 were acquittals while the rest were convictions.


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