Appeals court to sit in Arusha

Fourteen judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), five of whom are based at the Hague, are holding a one-day meeting in Arusha, ICTR spokesman Kingsley Moghalu confirmed to IRIN on Monday. The judges, who had agreed on several changes to the Tribunal's regulations at an earlier meeting in February, are likely to review these changes and recommend amendments where necessary for the improvement of the Tribunal's work, Moghalu said. Meanwhile, starting on Tuesday, the judges will hear an appeal filed by former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda, seeking to have his guilty plea annulled. Kambanda's lawyer argued that ICTR was legally wrong to accept the validity of the agreement according to which Kambanda pleaded guilty, the independent Hirondelle news agency noted. He said the Tribunal should not have done so without investigating "the fact that the guilty plea was not voluntary, and/or was ill-informed and/or was not explicit". Kambanda was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 September, 1998 after pleading guilty to all charges, including genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide.