Kigali: The alleged criminals in the ranks of the Rwanda Patriotic Front cannot be tried again for the same crimes they have already faced in Rwandan courts, the Justice Minister said Monday evening, accusing Human Rights Watch of usurping the responsibility of courts.
Rwandan courts have already handed these cases - sentencing the culprits to between five years and life in prison and therefore cannot be tried by any other jurisdiction, according to Mr. Tharcisse Karugarama.New York-based Human Rights Watch said Monday that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda must indict members of the former rebel group who are now in power to preserve its legitimacy. The organization – just out of losing its top critic of Kigali Alison DesForge, said the tribunal is only rendering “victors’ justice”.
"To date, the tribunal has tried only leading figures responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide and has failed to bring cases against the RPF officers despite jurisdiction to pursue these crimes," HRW said.
Based on the principle of double jeopardy, this tribunal has no jurisdiction over these people because that will be tantamount to trying them twice for the same accusations, Minister Karugarama said on State radio.
He said diplomats accredited to Kigali have reviewed the verdicts in all these cases and expressed satisfaction with the outcomes. The ICTR does not have any dossiers on RPF suspects because they have faced courts for those crimes, he added.
For him, Human Rights Watch is “deliberately refusing” to see anything good happening in Rwanda and is simply bent on “undermining” all the developments the country has witnessed.
HRW said crimes committed by RPF were well documented, with the U.N. estimating that of the 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus massacred over 100 days of genocide, between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians were killed by RPF.
"The ICTR has prosecuted persons belonging to only one side," said HRW, noting the international court for the former Yugoslavia has prosecuted crimes committed by all parties in the Balkans war.
HRW slammed the court's decision to transfer genocide cases involving RPF to Rwandan courts but not "diligently" monitoring the trials to see if they met international standards.
Four military officers were tried in Rwanda last year for the killing of 15 civilians. Two were jailed for eight years and the other two acquitted in a case HRW said "proved to be a political whitewash."
Human Right Watch is acting as the judge when it does not have that status, Mr. Karugarama said.
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