Genocide tribunal winds up, achieve 61 convictions
What you need to know:
- Judge Navanethem Pillay, the former Vice-President for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says then Kenyan President Daniel Moi threatened to arrest any of the Court's investigators if they set foot on Kenyan soil looking for the suspects.
- The Tribunal, formed by the UN Security Council in 1994 was supposed to bring to justice alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide where at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by the Hutu militia groups.
ARUSHA
The Kenyan government initially opposed work of a tribunal set up to prosecute suspects of Rwandan genocide despite the country hosting up to eight high profile suspects.
Judge Navanethem Pillay, the former Vice-President for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says then Kenyan President Daniel Moi threatened to arrest any of the Court's investigators if they set foot on Kenyan soil looking for the suspects.
"What disappointed many people is when president Moi of Kenya made a statement that he doesn't support the ICTR and if anybody from ICTR came into his country, he would detain them," she told the Nation on Monday.
The Tribunal, formed by the UN Security Council in 1994 was supposed to bring to justice alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide where at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by the Hutu militia groups.
Some of those targeted for trial included a leader of the government and several top government and military officials.
ICTR OPPOSED
But President Moi who had incidentally been vocal in masterminding regional peace talks for other conflicts in Burundi and (before) in Uganda supposedly refused to support the ICTR because he saw it as an outside tool to impose justice in the region.
Rwanda itself had opposed its creation because it did not provide for death penalty to those found guilty and because it had wanted it to be established in Rwanda as opposed to Arusha where it operated since.
"I wouldn't know why he changed his mind but it is the way the UN works and governments talk among themselves. There were eight suspects in his country and I think it was pressure or persuasion from other governments but also from us.
"We constantly approached the President, you have to do this because of impunity and were talking about fair trials here; we weren't to execute them. They were innocent, only if there is enough evidence and the court convicts them," Ms Pillay told the Nation in an interview.
NYERERE'S SCRUPLES
President Moi would later allow the ICTR investigators five hours only to arrest the suspects.
Although former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was arrested alongside several other former ministers, the event nearly turned chaotic after the ICTR prosecutors realised they had arrested one person despite not being among those indicted. The person was released shortly later.
Despite settling in Arusha, Ms Pillay claimed the tribunal was was faced with "negative expectations" with former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere initially doubting the tribunal's work would have an impact.
"I met also with President Julius Nyerere and he said to me is this important? Is the international criminal justice worth it.
"We present a success story which is ICTR, a story which produced groundbreaking jurisprudence which is quoted all over the world today," she said referring to international crimes of genocide and rape, which were first defined by the ICTR bench.
The Tribunal is winding up its work this week after 20 years of trials in Arusha.
It had indicted 93 Rwandans of which 61 people were convicted of genocide and 14 acquitted on appeals.
Ten suspects were referred to national courts in countries.
The Tribunal will next week deliver its final appeal decision.
STILL AT LARGE
Despite this statistics, nine of those accused and indicted by the ICTR for their participation in the genocide are still at large.
Rwanda has the first obligation to track them down but the after-ICTR programme called the Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals will remain in charge of looking for Augustine Bizimana, Felicien Kabuga and Protais Mpiranya, thought to have been influential during the genocide.
Mr Kabuga has often been thought to be hiding in Kenya, a charge Kenyan government denies to date.
The Court has acquitted 14 people since it started, but only six have been resettled in other countries.
Rwanda has refused the remaining eight, and no other country is willing to accept them.