UN team in Kigali to assess prison conditions

A team of senior officials of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is in Rwanda to assess prison conditions in a bid to have prisoners convicted by the Tanzania-based court brought to serve their sentences in the country, an official told IRIN on Wednesday.

"We are here to assess whether the prison designated for convicted prisoners from Arusha [the headquarters of the ICTR] meets international standards," Roland Amoussouga, the ICTR spokesman, said.

Rwanda has constructed a prison in the central province of Gitarama to hold prisoners sentenced by the ICTR.

Amoussouga said the Rwandan government had made the request to have the ICTR convicts serve out their sentences in the country. If the request is granted, Rwanda will become the seventh country after Mali, Benin, Swaziland, France, Italy and Sweden, to accept ICTR convicts.

"I cannot give a final view on this issue but, certainly, the said prison is a new one, meets basic standards, but we are still in negotiations to have some changes made," Amoussouga told IRIN. Rwanda has also made a request to hold trials of some of suspects held at the ICTR but, according to Amoussouga, the decision is still under discussion.

He described the relationship between the ICTR and the Rwandan government as steadily improving. "The relationship with government is quite good. We are getting cooperation in terms of having witnesses brought to Arusha and carrying out investigations, we can say that the cooperation is good," he said.

The UN Security Council set up the ICTR in 1995 to try the suspected perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which 937,000 people died, according to the Rwandan government.