Rwanda wants UN to send genocide convicts home

By Hereward Holland

KIGALI (Reuters) - The United Nations genocide court in Tanzania is reneging on its promise to transfer Rwandan convicts to serve the remainder of their sentences in their homeland, Rwanda's justice minister said.

Tharcisse Karugarama said he did not understand why the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had not returned convicts when Rwanda's jails were deemed sufficient for those convicted by Sierra Leone's war crimes court.

"We signed an agreement with ICTR to transfer the convicts to serve out their sentence here. So far they have not done it. We don't know why," he told Reuters on Monday.

About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu militias within 100 days during the 1994 genocide.

Since its establishment in 1994 the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, has convicted 38 people for their role in the genocide and acquitted six. Rwanda, Italy, Benin, Swaziland, France, Sweden and Mali have signed an agreement to host convicts.

Last week, the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) moved eight people convicted of crimes during a decade-long civil war to the "U.N. block" in Rwanda's Mpanga prison.

It was the the first time international convicts had been imprisoned in Rwanda.

ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga said the decision on where to house convicts lay with the court and so far no decision had been made with regard to the designation of Rwanda.