UN tribunal asks for contributions

If the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is not funded properly it will not meet its target set by the UN Security Council to complete all trials by 2008, the tribunal said in an annual report. The report, submitted to the UN Security Council by ICTR President Erik Møse, said the tribunal recently had to freeze recruitment because some UN member states had not paid their contributions. Møse recommended that the UN court should continue receiving adequate resources to enable it to complete its work on schedule. The UN Security Council has directed the court to complete investigations by the end of 2004, complete trials by 2008 and wind up all of its work by 2010. The tribunal is on schedule to meet its completion strategy, Møse told the council and asked states to help arrest and transfer some 17 people the tribunal has indicted and 16 suspects, who are still at large, to the tribunal's detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania. The UN Security Council set up the tribunal in 1994 to bring to trial those responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which, according to Rwandan government figures, claimed the lives of some 937,000 people. Since its inception, the tribunal has handed down 17 judgements in cases that involved 23 suspects, three of whom were acquitted. Trials for 21 suspects are currently in progress, five of them - involving 11 accused persons - having started since July 2003. The ICTR said it expects to complete these trials by 2005-06.