The Government has expressed concern over the early release of two convicted Genocide masterminds by the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT).
The Government has expressed concern over the early release of two convicted Genocide masterminds by the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT).
MICT is the institution that took over the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and it announced Wednesday that Ferdinand Nahimana and Emmanuel Rukundo will be released before serving their full sentences.
Both convicts are incarcerated in Mali where Nahimana, a Genocide ideologue, is serving 30 years, while Rukundo, a Catholic priest, is serving a 23-year jail term.
"We are concerned and worried. We will seek to understand this latest release,” the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Johnston Busingye, told The New Times yesterday.
The MICT was established by the UN Security Council in 2010 to carry out essential functions of the ICTR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), after the completion of their respective mandates.
According to reports, the Mechanism’s president Judge Theodor Meron, in a September decision that was only published on the MICT website on Wednesday, said that while the crimes for which Nahimana was convicted are grave, "the fact that he already completed two-thirds of his sentence as of March 27, 2016, and the fact that he has demonstrated some signs of rehabilitation weigh in favour of his early release.”
Meron came to a similar conclusion with regards to Rukundo, a former military chaplain, in a July decision, also published Wednesday.
Survivors baffled
Ibuka, the umbrella group of Genocide survivors, is equally baffled, with its president, Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, saying that what is happening is incomprehensible.
To survivors, he said, judges who release people like Nahimana and Rukundo, well knowing what they did, "have devious schemes.”
Dusingizemungu posed: "Why don’t they consider the fact that Genocide is a very serious crime against humanity? What really is the basis for saying that these people demonstrated signs of rehabilitation? Did they ever show any remorse for their crimes? Did they ever help justice in getting information regarding what happened during the Genocide?
"Have these people even made any effort to show the world intent to fight genocide ideology and denial? The acts of Judge Theodor Meron and his colleagues, really, are incomprehensible. These acts, to us, appear as denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi.”
Genocide researcher Tom Ndahiro is also bothered by Judge Meron’s order for the early release of Nahimana, who he says is "Rwanda’s Josef Goebbels” [a German politician and Reich minister for propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945].
"Next will be Theoneste Bagosora like Goering,” said Ndahiro.
In the past, Bagosora, known as the main mastermind of the Genocide against the Tutsi, had his sentence reduced from life to 35 years, on appeal.
Bagosora was a member of the Akazu, an inner group associated with former First Lady Agathe Habyarimana, who was at the nexus of Genocide ideology.
Ten of such criminals convicted at the ICTR have since been granted early release circumstances criticised by Kigali.
Nahimana is a former history professor and co-founder of hate-speech broadcaster Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, the extremist radio station that exhorted the public to kill the Tutsi.
First arrested in 1996, Nahimana was found guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement, persecution and extermination in December 2003.
Rukundo, who is a former military chaplain, was arrested in 2001, before he was convicted of genocide, extermination and murder in February 2009.
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