The Chief Prosecutor of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), Dr Serge Brammertz, has added his voice against early release of persons convicted of participating in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, calling the victims’ concerns "understandable.”

Early release is a practice in most countries where convicts can be set free after serving a certain part of the sentence.

In 2012, MICT attracted criticism from survivors and government when it granted early release to Paul Bisengimana, a former mayor, and Interahamwe leader Omar Serushago, who were at the time incarcerated in Mali.

Last year, Ferdinand Nahimana and Emmanuel Rukundo were also released before serving their full sentences.

Nahimana and Rukundo were serving their respective prison sentences before the president of MICT, Theodor Meron, decided to grant them early release in December.

But addressing a news conference at the Prosecutor-General’s office in Kigali yesterday, Brammertz said he preferred the conditional release where a number of a set of conditions are imposed, including consulting victims or a prosecutor as part of the process.

"If you ask my personal opinion, with all due respect to all the judges of course, I fully understand the concerns by the victims,” he said.

"There are many countries where early release is more of a conditional release where it is linked to a number of conditions to be imposed and a number of actors of the judicial process like victims or prosecutor are consulted before a decision is taken. That is a system I would personally prefer but again, this is really in the hands of the judges and the tribunal president.”

Brammertz was quick to remind reporters that this was a purely judicial decision that excluded national and international prosecutors.

Pledges of information sharing

Responing to questions on whether MICT was willing to share information collected over a decade to aid Rwanda to pursue French citizens who were involved in the Genocide, Brammertz said his office was ready to provide all the available data to help bring every suspect to justice. 

"We work on cases of individual criminal responsibility, so once my colleagues have identified persons from whatever nationality, we will receive request for assistance and we will provide all information available in our database in this regard. We will proceed with those cases exactly the way we proceed with others,” he said.

Brammertz also pledged to continue supporting Rwanda to pursue the suspects and hand them over for trial.

"In relation to the files of the fugitives that we handed over, those cases are within the full responsibility of Rwanda’s Prosecutor General’s office in relation to future prosecution. We are of course working very closely together because the international arrest warrants issued by the judge of ICTR are still valid and are doing this together. Hopefully, they can be arrested and tried in Rwanda soon,” he said.

MICT handed over eight files to Rwanda and, so far, three are on trial while five are still at large. Generally, there are 647 fugitives whose arrest warrants are already complete while 17 others have been extradited back to Rwanda in the last 20 years.

Plans to set up ad hoc committee

Prosecutor-General Jean Bosco Mutangana said the discussion with his counterpart had rotated around cooperation matters, including the plan to set up a working relationship that would strengthen cooperation between both institutions.

"We are working with the MICT Prosecutor to set up a permanent ad hoc working group on how cooperation can be established and to ensure that it is strengthened so that even if we are pursuing these fugitives, we would like to see the Prosecutor much more involved in helping Rwanda to ensure that at one point we can bring these people to justice,” he said.

Brammertz was accompanied by his team; Bob Reid, head of operations, and Martin Kostov, head of the Fugitives Unit based in Arusha, Tanzania.

MICT is mandated to perform a number of essential functions previously carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Who is Nahimana

Ferdinand Nahimana is a former History Professor, renowned Genocide ideologue who co-founded hate-speech broadcaster Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) that exhorted the public to kill the Tutsi.

He was first arrested in 1996 and in December 2003, he was found guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement, persecution and extermination. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Fr Emmanuel Rukundo was arrested in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 12, 2001. The former military pastor was accused of helping and encouraging the kidnapping and massacre of the Tutsi who sought refuge at the College of Saint Joseph and Saint Léon Seminary, both in Kabgayi. He was sentenced to 23 years in jail for genocide, extermination and murder. 

What does the framework under which the early releases are sanctioned provide for?

Convicts at MICT in Arusha and ICTY are eligible for early release after they have served two-thirds of their sentence. Ten Genocide perpetrators convicted by ICTR have so far been released.

Is consultation before such releases a matter of morality or legal  requirement?

Parole hearings are common in other courts where early release is recognised. A prosecutor or a victim can sit on the committee that decides whether someone should be released or not.

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