Rwanda and UN court vow to end witness deadlock
By Hirondelle News Agency
Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have agreed to
speed up the resolution of a stand-off involving the murder last year of a
witness who had recently returned from testifying at the court, officials told
Hirondelle News Agency on Monday.
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Spokesperson of the ICTR Roland Amoussouga |
"We have set up a small committee to quickly look into the
matter with a view of quickly clearing this issue, Rwanda's permanent envoy to
the ICTR, Aloys Mutabingwa said.
"We tackled the issue of witness protection in relation with the witness (Nyemazi,
murdered last year) and also generally on how to better protect them", the
spokesperson of the ICTR, Roland Amoussouga told Hirondelle News Agency.
Bosco Nyemazi, a confessed genocide killer was murdered in his village of Kaduha
(South Rwanda) on October 12th, 2004. He was a prosecution witness in the
genocide trial of former military officer Aloys Simba.
The Rwandan police wanted to interrogate two ICTR staff members that visited
Nyemazi the day he was killed. But the ICTR refused to release the two members
of an investigation team.
The stand-off that ensued threatened vital cooperation between the court and
Rwanda.
The Registrar of the ICTR, Adama Dieng, headed the delegation from the court
that arrived in Kigali on Friday to discuss a solution with the Rwandan
government. He met the Rwandan ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs among
several other senior Rwandan officials.
The two sides also discussed several other cooperation issues including
improvement of communication between the court and Rwanda, enforcement of ICTR
sentences in Rwanda and defence counsels' travel to Rwanda.
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