Rwanda unhappy over France’s handling of Genocide cases

Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor of Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals responds to questions from the journalists, yesterday, as Justice minister Johnston Busingye listens.

Rwanda has expressed its dissatisfaction over the cases of genocide perpetrators that were transferred to be tried in Paris France by The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Government says that cases that were transferred by the tribunal which is currently the Residual Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNMICT) to France have been tried with less effort.

Johnston Busingye, Rwanda’s minister of justice says the cases that were transferred to France unlike those taken to Rwanda have been slow while others dismissed despite Rwanda and the Tribunal’s dismay.

Busingye who was meeting the new Prosecutor of the Residual Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (MICT),Serge Bremmertz in Kigali expressed a need to put to task France on the quality of trials the way it is done for Rwanda in order to remove doubt of double standards.

“Inspite of this state of affairs there is no talk of ICTR or MICT independent monitors going to investigate the quality of trials in France,” the minister said on Wednesday.

The two cases involving Wincelas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta transferred to France in November 2007, the former after a sluggish progress was dismissed in August 2015 while the latter is yet to move beyond preliminary investigations.

The justice minister further indicated the need for government of Rwanda to have the ICTR archives transferred to Rwanda adding the archives contain government documents and records which were tendered as evidence at the tribunal.

“What remains unaddressed is the urgent need to have a candid conversation about their mode of acquisition and their current legal ownership.”

He adds, “We do agree that the archives should remain in the custody of the United Nations. However Rwanda is a full member of the UN and is prepared to do what it takes to get them physically located here.”

However, Bremmertz   who is on his one day visit in the country assured Government of the commitment to follow-up the progress of cases tied in France to ensure that Justice is done.

“I fully understand the importance, dimension what it means for survivors to get justice and how important it is to bring those how are responsible to justice,” he said.

Bremmertz who is taking over from Hassan Bubacar Jallow said that he will continue to have longer technical meeting with ministry of justice staff to ensure quality   in trials of   genocide cases.