Arusha, March 7, 2007 – The American Ambassador for War Crimes, Mr. Clint Williamson, arrived Wednesday in Arusha (Tanzania) for a 2 day visit to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). During this visit, the American diplomat is scheduled to meet with key officials in this Tribunal whose Chamber trials should end next year. According to the ICTR spokesperson, Mr. Everard O’Donnell, a number of important subjects will be discussed, including the “completion strategy” of the ICTR. The ICTR has until now rendered 27 convictions and 5 acquittals. Twenty-seven accused are in trial. 9 are awaiting trial while 18 are at large. At the end of the year, it will have cost a billion US dollars. After attending different hearings of trials in progress, Ambassador Williamson is scheduled to meet Wednesday at the end of the afternoon with the Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow, before being received Thursday by the President of the Tribunal, the Norweigian Erik Mose, and finally by the Chief Registrar, the Senegalese Adama Dieng, according to the program of his visit. Soon after his arrival Wednesday morning, he met with the Representative of the Rwandan government to the ICTR, Aloys Mutabingwa. Touring the region, Mr. Williamson will then visit Kigali before the end of the week. During his visit to the ICTR in November 2003, Mr. Williamson’s predecessor, Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, asked Rwandan authorities and those of the ICTR to discuss the controversial question of crimes which could have been committed in 1994 by elements of the former rebellion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), currently in power. “The ICTR and the Rwandan government must talk about this question. If there were crimes, justice is needed,” Pierre-Richard Prosper declared. Chief Prosecutor Jallow will decide around the middle of the year whether or not investigations will be opened against elements of the RPF, after having studied accumulated evidence, according to his spokesperson, Timothy Gallimore. ER/PB/KD © Hirondelle News Agency