KIGALI - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) prosecutor’s office has petitioned against the two rulings by the ICTR chambers blocking the transfer of two Genocide cases to Rwanda, Sunday Times can reveal.

Hassan Bubacar Jallow, ICTR chief prosecutor, has appealed the tribunal’s decision.

On May 28, the ICTR trial chamber rejected the application for referral of businessman Yussuf Munyakazi’s case to Rwanda.

A few days later on June 8, the trial chamber also rejected the prosecutions request to transfer the case of Gaspard Kanyarukiga to Rwanda.

Kanyarukiga, who was arrested in South Africa in 2004, is accused of committing genocide in the former Kivumu Commune in Kibuye.

Munyakazi was arrested in May 2004 in DRC and is charged for Genocide or alternatively with complicity in genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity in Cyangugu.

When contacted on Friday, Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said that Rwanda remains interested in the two cases. 

Ngoga said that the recent rulings will effect other decisions related to the Rwandan judicial system.

"What is of utmost importance is not to have the decisions and rulings made in Arusha portraying our judiciary as not serious, to our other partners,” said Ngoga in an interview at his Kimihurura office.

Ngoga added that the decisions made by the ICTR did not reflect the reality on the ground in Rwanda. He, however, welcomed the appeal saying it will reveal the true picture.

"We are ready to work with the ICTR Prosecutor’s office in appealing these two cases.”

Ngoga said Rwanda, in applying for the transfers, is responding to a call by the United Nations Security Council to different countries to receive the cases and suspects.

The ICTR, according to its completion strategy, is supposed to finalise the first instance cases by the end of 2008 and the appeals by 2010.

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