RWANDA: Kigali pleased with UN tribunal's handing over of 15 dossiers

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ARUSHA, 24 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Rwanda is pleased with a move by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to hand over dossiers of 15 genocide suspects, who are still at large, to Kigali for prosecution, Deputy Prosecutor Martin Ngoga told IRIN on Thursday.

"The 15 names are of some big fishes wanted for genocide," he said.

However, he declined to disclose the names, saying they would remain confidential until arrests were made. He said once arrested, the suspects would face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwandan courts.

Some 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died in the 1994 genocide, according to the government's estimates.

ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow handed over the dossiers on Wednesday to the Rwandan prosecutor, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, the spokesman of the UN tribunal, Roland Amoussouga, told IRIN in Arusha, Tanzania, the tribunal's headquarters.

He said the tribunal's investigators had completed dossiers for some years. The handing over of the dossiers, he said, was part of the tribunal's completion strategy as directed by the UN Security Council. The court is expected to complete its work by 2008.

Ammoussouga said once arrested, the suspects would be tried in Rwanda but according to UN standards. Rwandan law allows for the death penalty while the maximum sentence under the UN is life imprisonment.

Presently, cases for 25 genocide suspects are ongoing before the tribunal while 18 others await trial.

Since its inception in 1994, the court has so far convicted 20 people and acquitted three others of genocide.

[ENDS]