20.04.07 - ICTR/MILITARY I - ICTR JUDGES RULE THAT THEY HAVE NO JURISDICTION TO ORDER ...

20.04.07 - ICTR/MILITARY I -  ICTR JUDGES RULE THAT THEY HAVE NO JURISDICTION TO ORDER THE PROSECUTION OF KAGAME   Arusha, April 20, 2007 (FH) – The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ruled that they had no jurisdiction to open a judicial prosecution of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and other former officials from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), suspected of having committed crimes in 1994, it was learned from a judicial source Friday.   The chamber, presided by the Norwegian Judge Erik Mose, who is also directing the Tribunal, rejected a request submitted last December by the former paracommando battalion commander’s lawyer, Major Aloys Ntabakuze, after the publication of the investigation of the French antiterrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere on the bombing on April 6, 1994 against President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane.   “The Chamber finds that it has no jurisdiction to direct the Prosecutor’s course of action in conduction investigations or prosecutions and denies the Defence request for a writ of mandamus,” according to the text of the decision.   Designating Kagame as the primary person responsible for the assassination of his predecessor, Judge Bruguiere ordered the opening of a judicial investigation against the Rwandan number one and issued arrest warrants against nine other Rwandan figures.   The Chamber noted that the writ of mandamus on prosecutions, provided for in certain national judicial systems, was not part of the ICTR texts.   In his request, Mr. Peter Erlinder, Ntabakuze’s American lawyer, blamed the ICTR prosecutor for only prosecuting members of the former regime removed from power by the RPF in July 1994.   According the prosecutor’s spokesperson, the decision on whether or not to prosecute crimes which had been committed in 1994 by the RPF will be made in the middle of the year.   The Gambian Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, said his office had jurisdiction to prosecute crimes allegedly committed by the RPF but stated that the assassination of President Habyarimana was not part of its mandate.   Since the opening of the trials in 1997, the ICTR, sitting in Arusha, Tanzania, has pronounced 28 guilty verdicts and 5 acquittals.   The Security Council has asked it to finish all trials in Trial Chamber by the end of next year.     ER/PB/KD   © Hirondelle News Agency