After open defiance of global legislation and tensions at the Security Council, the much anticipated prosecution of some Rwandan genocide perpetrators has degenerated into shambles.
The chaos follows the contentious release for trial of some masterminds, the inability of local authorities to arrest hundreds of fugitives and defiant nations that do not surrender suspects.
Only South Africa has committed to cooperating and surrendering in its land an undisclosed fugitive.
Serge Brammertz, prosecutor for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), said his office had credible intelligence on the whereabouts of some eight prime fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
However, it was ineffective to approach countries to promote their handover.
“It appears that some countries do not give priority to cooperating with the Office in bringing genocide fugitives to justice. Only on July 16 did South Africa confirmed commitment to cooperating in the case of a fugitive located in its territory,” Brammertz said.
He said the authorities in Rwanda had not found more than 500 suspects in the meantime.
IRMCT was set up in 2010.
Nonetheless, Valentine Rugwabiza, the ambassador of Rwanda to the Security Council, criticized the IRMCT for releasing eight convicts of genocide, decreasing sentences for 23 others, and releasing or acquitting nine convicts.
Convicts were released on basis of “good behaviour.”
“None of them expressed even a shred of remorse. They are unrepentant extremist ideologues who held key positions prior to and during the genocide,” Rugwabiza charged.
In the Rwandan genocide 25 years ago, an approximately 1 million individuals were murdered.