Annan appoints new registrar to ICTR

The UN has appointed Adama Dieng of Senegal as registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), sitting in Arusha, northern Tanzania. Dieng succeeds Agwu Ukiwe Okali of Nigeria, who will complete his four-year mandate at the end of February. Dieng, born on 22 May 1950, served as Registrar of the Supreme Court of Senegal for six years before joining the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in 1982, and serving until May 2000. He was appointed UN Independent Expert for Haiti in 1995. As head of the ICJ, Dieng was not unfamiliar with events in Rwanda, the independent Hirondelle news agency reported on Tuesday. As early as 1991, the ICJ sent lawyers to Kigali to monitor trials of civilians who had been accused of complicity with the Tutsi guerrilla Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). After the genocide, Dieng continued to be involved in the promotion of justice and reconciliation in Rwanda, it said.