31.03.10 - RWANDA/GACACA - GACACA CLOSURE POSTPONED ONE MORE TIME

31 March 2010 By

Kigali, March 31, 2010 (FH) - The Gacaca courts, which were created in 2001 as an attempt to try the bulk of Rwanda's genocide suspects, have not wound up their proceedings by the end of March, the new deadline failed as trials were already expected be concluded a month earlier.

Republish

To multiply its impact, information must flow freely

Republish our original articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.

Click here to republish this content

0 min 49Approximate reading time

According to Denis Bikesha, the director of training, mobilisation and sensitisation of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions (NSGJ), proceedings will continue in April. He gave no new deadline for the end of all trials.

Hundreds of cases are believed to be still pending before Gacaca courts which began their actual trials only five years ago. Roughly one million people have so far been judged.

The Gacaca courts, adapted from a form of Rwandan traditional justice, are tasked with trying suspected perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide which left some 800,000 people dead, according to the UN. These village courts, whose judges are elected from the community, can hand down sentences up to life imprisonment, which is now the maximum penalty in Rwanda.

Many genocide survivors regret that the Gacaca justice has not helped to resolve outstanding problems, notably the restoration to their rightful owners of assets which were taken away by force in 1994, or their correct appraisal in view of full compensation.

SRE/ER/GF