The President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), Judge Carmel Agius, on Wednesday, told the United Nations General Assembly that South Africa is yet to execute an arrest warrant issued by the Mechanism’s Prosecutor for a fugitive believed to be holed up there. This came up as Agius, in his first address to the Assembly since he assumed office in January 2019, presented the seventh annual report of the Mechanism to the UN General Assembly. Protais Mpiranya is one of the three most wanted Genocide fugitives dubbed the ‘Big Fish’ by the UN court, owing to their critical role in the Genocide in which over a million people died. Mpiranya was the commandant of the notorious presidential guards, known for their viciousness in killing people during the Genocide. Agius appraised the Assembly of judicial developments at the Mechanism’s two branches, indicating that most of the current caseload is expected to conclude by the end of 2020. “He recalled however that the Mechanism is tasked with a range of other residual functions that will continue once the core judicial work is completed, including supervising the enforcement of sentences, protecting victims and witnesses, providing assistance to national jurisdictions, monitoring cases referred to national jurisdictions, and preserving and managing the archives of the Mechanism and its predecessor Tribunals,” reads a statement by the Mechanism. “On the subject of the tracking and arrest of the remaining fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), President Agius noted that South Africa is yet to execute an arrest warrant issued by the Mechanism’s Prosecutor for a fugitive located in that country.” Judge Carmel Agius, the President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals speaks in Kigali earlier this year. / File Agius urged all UN member states to adhere to their international legal obligations in this regard. In July, the Prosecutor for the IRMCT, Serge Brammertz, said his office had credible intelligence on the whereabouts of some of the eight Genocide fugitives indicted by the court. In December 2015, the Mechanism took over from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) established by the UN to try masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Judge Carmel Agius on Monday announced that the court is expected to wrap up its judicial work by the end of 2020. The President also sought support from member states in relocating nine individuals who have been either acquitted or released by the ICTR but are unable or afraid to return to their country of citizenship. President Agius also drew the Assembly’s attention to the Mechanism’s restrained budget submission for 2020, emphasising that its approval will allow the Mechanism to finalise much of the existing judicial workload and position itself for a lean post-2020 scenario, the statement added. In this context, he stressed his conviction that international criminal justice “will always be worth the international community’s investment of time and resources.” He urged member states to continue to support the Mechanism to the fullest extent possible, so that the values that led to the establishment of the UN 74 years ago may be upheld. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
