Arusha, 5 May 2007 (FH) \u2013The four month suspension of the trial of three leaders of the political party that was in power during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, has been put to an end since a date to resume the trial has been set and a substitute judge has been nominated.
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\nOn the back-burner since the 19 January, illness related retirement of Ghanian judge Ghanian Francis Short, the MRND trial will begin on 11 June.\u00a0
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\nThe Accused were in charge of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, the party of former president Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana, who died 6 April 1994 in the attempt to bring about the genocide of the Tutsis.
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\nThe parties have used this \u201cbreak\u201d to argue about the resumption of the trial or the continuation of the trial\u2019s suspension.\u00a0 The judges leaned in favour of the advocates of continuing the trial.\u00a0 The trial began on September 2005.\u00a0 The prosecutor has already summoned thirteen out of one hundred witnesses.
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\nDanish judge Vagn Joensen has been designated to replace Judge Short.\u00a0 He was sworn in on Wednesday in front of the president of the ICTR and the registrar, who represented the United Nations secretary-general.
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\nFormer attorney, prosecutor, and law professor in Denmark, Vahn Joensen was also a judge in Denmark and Kosovo.
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\nThe Tribunal has also publicized three indictments which were previously sealed.\u00a0 They concern Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, former sub-prefect of Gisagara.\u00a0 He is answering for the crimes of genocide and complicity in genocide as well as directly inciting the public to commit genocide.\u00a0 The charges against him are partly similar to those against the mayor of Muganza, which is not far from Gisagara, Elie Ndayambahe, who was prosecuted along with five other people in the Butare case since Junie 2001.
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\nButare is one of four trials which are taking place this week.\u00a0 In Butare, the fourth accused is presenting his defence.\u00a0 In the interest of moving along the trial, the chamber has ordered the two remaining to reduce there list of witnesses to thirty each.\u00a0 They have appealed this decision.
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\nApart from Butare, the other trials which are set for this week are Military II (four officers), Government II (four ex-ministers), and Sim\u00e9on Nshamihigo (a former deputy prosecutor).
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\nThe trial Nshamihigo was reported in August.\u00a0 Since 23 April, Nshamihigo has presented his first eighteen witnesses.
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\nOn Friday, the Tribunal has finally held a brief conference of the state of affaires of the Emmanuel Rukundo case, a Catholic priest accused of genocide.\u00a0 It has been decided that he will present his case beginning on 2 July.
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\n\u00a9 Hirondelle News Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, 5 May 2007 (FH) \u2013The four month suspension of the trial of three leaders of the political party that was in power during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, has been put to an end since a date to resume the trial has been set and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-18699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n