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Information, Documentation and Training Agency, Arusha (Tanzania):
News
02.07.03
ICTR/PROSECUTION - PROSECUTOR SPOKESPERSON DENIES TRIBUNAL HAS DROPPED PLANS TO PURSUE RPF SOLDIERS
Arusha, July 2nd, 2003 (FH) - The International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) is still conducting investigations into alleged war crimes committed by soldiers of the current Rwandan government in 1994, according to the spokesperson of the ICTR Prosecutor.
Florence Hartmann, the spokesperson of Carla Del Ponte, said this on Tuesday in a telephone conversation with Hirondelle News Agency. She was reacting to a press report in which it was stated that the office of the prosecutor had struck a deal with the Rwandan government to drop the investigations.
"It is absolutely false", said Hartmann. "The prosecutor has a precise mandate and cannot strike a deal with any government. That would be in contradiction with her mandate".
The spokesperson explained that the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR was charged with investigations on all forms of violations of international law committed in Rwanda in 1994.
Pan African News Agency (PANA), reported on June 26 that there were indications that a deal had been struck during a "recent" meeting in Washington between Carla del Ponte and Rwanda's Prosecutor-General, Gerald Gahima.
Florence Hartmann indicated that Carla del Ponte simply took advantage of her presence in Washington and New York to meet Rwandan officials who were present there to discuss "better cooperation".
Relations between Rwanda and the ICTR took a dive last year when the Prosecutor made known her intentions to pursue members of the Rwanda Defence Forces (formerly the RPA, the military wing of the RPF, currently in power in Kigali) suspected of war crimes.
The government of Rwanda had said that it had tried soldiers implicated in related crimes, and instead called upon the tribunal on concentrate on the genocide of Tutsis, for which a number of former senior officials of the Rwandan government, predominantly Hutu, are being held.
Hartmann stated that the Rwandan government has a right to conduct its own investigations regarding war crimes but that the ICTR has pre-eminence over national jurisdictions. She added that the prosecutor would close investigations at the end of 2004, and that it was that time that all those indicted would be made public.
KN/AT/CE/FH(OTP'0702e)
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