Arusha, 28 September 2007 (FH) - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Bubacar Jallow, stated Friday that he is "worried" by the slowness of the proceedings before French courts of a transfer request to the United Nations tribunal of two defendants living in France.
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\n"We are worried", recognized the Gambian magistrate during a short press conference at the headquarters of the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania.
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\n"Our concern is that there is a decision as soon as possible. We hope that it will finish as quickly as possible. We remain in contact with the French authorities on this subject ", continued Jallow.
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\nThe Court of Appeal of Paris announced Wednesday that it will re-examine 21 November the cases of Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a 49 years old Catholic priest, and Laurent Bucyibaruta, 62 years old former prefect of Gikongoro (southern Rwanda),.
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\nIt asks notably of the ICTR, which issued arrest warrants against the two men, to provide it before 15 November with additional information on its possible discharge of the cases to allow France to try the two accused.
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\nThe ICTR prosecutor did indeed request in June the discharge of his own jurisdiction to the benefit of the French courts. But the ICTR chamber designated to rule on this request has not ruled yet on this transfer.
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\nThe Court of Appeal of Paris also asks that the ICTR forward it original or certified copies of documents in support of the warrants that it issued 13 August.
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\nFollowing this decision, a French association, the collective of civil parties for Rwanda (CPCR), accused the ICTR of not taking the case seriously.
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\n"This new episode underlines well the lightness of the ICTR which is not able to forward to national courts documents acceptable by these same courts, to which it is supposed to entrust cases", brought forth the CPCR in an official statement.
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\n"We treated the question seriously, very seriously", reacted Jallow.
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\nER\/PB\/MM <\/p>\n
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Arusha, 28 September 2007 (FH) - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Bubacar Jallow, stated Friday that he is "worried" by the slowness of the proceedings before French courts of a transfer request to the United Nations tribunal of two defendants living in France. <\/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-19183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n