Registrar to press France to take acquitted mayor

The registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Adama Dieng, said last week that he hoped to meet shortly with the French foreign minister in Paris, to urge the country to grant asylum to acquitted Rwandan ex-mayor Ignace Bagilishema. “We are hoping that France, with its long tradition of human rights and support for the ICTR will consider with sympathy the request that it accommodate Bagilishema,” the independent Hirondelle news agency quoted Dieng as saying. He said that France was the only country where court-imposed conditions for Bagilishema’s release had so far been met, but added that the Tribunal was also contacting other countries. On 7 June, Bagilishema became the first person to be acquitted on all charges by the ICTR. He has expressed a desire to go to a European country, but no country will so far take him, so remains in the UN custody in Arusha.

The judges had initially ordered his immediate release, but the ICTR prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said she was appealing his acquittal and asked that he be kept in custody. The court then ordered that Bagilishema must have two people to guarantee that he would turn up in court and an address in his prospective country of residence before he can be released, Hirondelle said. “I am a bit embarrassed that he is still around,” Dieng said, stressing that Bagilishema had been acquitted and that the UN in particular could not afford to be accused of an “arbitrary and illegal detention”.