Rwanda asks Tribunal to arrest investigators

Rwanda has asked that the four former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) defence investigators, recently sacked by the Tribunal on suspicion that they played a part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, be arrested and tried, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Thursday. The request was made by Rwanda’s Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo said after meeting the Tribunal’s Registrar, Adama Dieng, who is visiting Rwanda. He claimed there was “enough evidence” to arrest the four. Dieng, for his part, said that the services of the four investigators were terminated since they were suspected of involvement in the genocide. He said, however, that if the witnesses failed to convince the court, they would be set free and re-integrated into the Tribunal.

The four investigators are: Augustin Basebya, who was working for the team of former Rwandan mayor Juvénal Kajelijeli; Augustin Karera, who was working on the case of former minister Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda; Aloys Ngandahimana, an investigator for former RTLM radio director Ferdinand Nahimana; and Thadée Kwitonda, who was on the team of former Interahamwe militia leader Arsène Shalom Ntahobali. In a press release issued on Monday, Dieng, said the measures had been taken in line with an earlier statement in June aimed at “preventing abuses of the legal aid system and protecting the integrity of the Tribunal’s judicial process”.