'Ease court's genocide burden'
2005-06-14 10:34
New York - The top prosecutor with the United Nations (UN) tribunal for Rwanda on Monday urged more countries to take on cases of those accused of genocide to ease the court's burden.
Hassan Jallow told the UN security council if countries do not step up, the UN tribunal based in Arusha, Tanzania, will have to squeeze the cases into its already busy schedule as it tries to finish trials by a 2008 deadline.
Jallow said three European countries have expressed interest "in principle" to take on some of the court's cases.
The Rwanda tribunal was set up in 1994 to prosecute those who took part in the 100-day slaughter orchestrated by a government of extremists from the Hutu majority in which more than 500 000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed.
About 63 genocide suspects are in the custody of the tribunal in Tanzania and 25 of them are standing trial. So far, 22 others have been convicted and three acquitted.
With cases moving so slowly, the court has had to limit itself to the highest-profile suspects and send some cases back to courts in Rwanda and elsewhere.
Underscoring the court's difficulties, the president of the tribunal, Erik Mose, spent a large part of his speech to the council saying how the tribunal's work had been sped up thanks to the construction of a fourth courtroom — constructed with money from Norway and Britain.
"The costs were about half of the construction cost of any of the first three courtrooms," Mose said.
Mose urged nations to pay their dues to the tribunal. Last year, the court was forced to put a freeze on recruitment because it was not getting the money it needed quickly enough.
- AP