ICTR aims for a busy end of year

The president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Judge Navanethem Pillay, is hoping to have five significant new indictments in the coming weeks, and to have several new arrests before the end of this year, in order to carry through to 2001 a “new dynamism and momentum” achieved this year. Judge Pillay told a UN Security Council briefing on the Tribunal’s fifth year of operation that there were 35 people awaiting trial at the court in Arusha, northern Tanzania, and that the court was determined to do everything possible to complete its caseload in the remaining three years of the judges’ mandate. The Rwanda Tribunal judges were “less than satisfied” with the record of only seven convictions so far, but much had been done this year to reorganise caseloads, streamline operations and get cases ready for trial next year, Pillay said. However, more resources would be required for the preparation of judgements and for the translation of documents if the Tribunal was to progress as it hoped, she added. On Thursday, meanwhile, Danish police announced that 38-year-old Innocent Sagahatu, a former Rwandan army officer, would be handed over to the ICTR on Friday to face 12 charges relating to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers [killed as they tried to protect the Rwandan prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana who was herself murdersd]. Sagahutu is scheduled to make his initial appearance at the ICTR on Tuesday, 28 November, the Hirondelle news agency reported on Friday. In its fifth annual report to the UN Security Council this week, the Tribunal reported that, in 1999, the intelligence network put in place by the Office of the Prosecutor and the tracking team’s aggressive approach were determining factors in the arrests of seven suspects. Navanethem Pillay said the ICTR was now facing “a very intense period in its mandate” with senior figures alleged to have been involved in the Rwandan genocide finally coming to trial. “Now, at last, we will see in public the results of all the preparations that has been done,” she added. Pillay also said she was hoping to explore the possibility of having trial hearings in Rwanda, but that the statute setting up the Tribunal had established its seat in Arusha. While the trial chamber could decide to hold trials elsewhere, it was still up to the Security Council to decide whether or not the Tribunal’s statute should be amended in terms of defining its seat as Arusha. ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said that while it had been frustrating through the year to have suspects in custody but not get them quickly into court, one of the biggest cases, against key Rwandan media figures alleged to have played a key role in inciting the genocide, had been started last month and was recognised as breaking new legal ground. The ICTR Appeals Court upholding a life sentence for former prime minister Jean Kambanda was also encouraging because it showed “the job of prosecuting enormous crimes could be done, and was being done to the necessary high ‘criminal standard’,” Del Ponte said. It was regrettable that the Security Council statute establishing the ICTR “made no provision for victim participation during the trial, and made only a minimum of provision for compensation and restitution to people whose lives had been destroyed,” Del Ponte said. Yet, the prosecutor’s office was enjoying success in tracing and freezing funds in the personal accounts of the accused, and that money could be used by the court to compensate victims, she said. The role of victims should not be forgotten in the justice process, and the voices of the survivors and victims’ relatives were not being sufficiently heard, said the ICTR Prosecutor. Del Ponte suggested that the present system fell short of delivering justice to the people of Rwanda, and that the Security Council give “serious and urgent consideration” to any change that could improve this situation.