Rwanda calls on new UN prosecutor to press countries on genocide suspects

Rwandan leaders gave a request Wednesday to new prosecutor of the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Serge Brammertz, to exhort countries hosting genocide suspects to bring them to book.

Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) replaced the former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which wound down its business last December.

Rwanda's Justice Minister Johnston Busingye made the request after meeting with prosecutor Brammertz in Kigali.

The meeting also attended by Rwanda's Chief Justice Prof. Sam Rugege, and Prosecutor General Richard Muhumuza was meant to chart on the tribunal's working relations with Rwanda among other things.

Busingye singled out decade-long cases of two Rwandans including Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka-former vicar at a church in Kigali whose genocide charges were dropped in France last year and Laurent Bucyibaruta, who was arrested on warrant from ICTR but remains in detention in France without trial.

Busingye called on the new prosecutor to put more efforts in tracking of genocide fugitives still at large.

Brammertz said he would press countries to help bring genocide fugitives to face justice.

He promised to visit a number of countries in the region and beyond where fugitives are said to be hiding.

"I will meet with members of the government where cases have been transferred, one of them will be France. I have no problem at all going to France raising this issue with our colleagues there and to ask explanations why the situation is ongoing for so long," he said.

Prosecutor Brammertz was appointed on February 29 by the United Nations Security Council to serve the Mechanism, replacing the Gambian Prosecutor Bubacar Jallow. Endit