Bagaragaza transferred to Sweden

ARUSHA - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has transferred the former head of the Rwandan Tea Authority (OCIR-Thé), Michel Bagaragaza, to Sweden. The tribunal last year sentenced the close ally to former President Juvenal Habyarimana to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty of one count of Complicity in Genocide and given due consideration for the time he had spent in detention since his arrest in 2005. According to agencies, Bagaragaza was secretly transferred last July from an isolated area from other inmates in Arusha, Tanzania. “The Registrar took care of his transfer on July 19, 2010, following a confidential decision taken on June 28, by ICTR President, designating Sweden as the State where the convict should execute the remainder of his sentence,” agencies quote ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga as saying recently. On where exactly Bagaragaza had been transferred to Sweden, Amoussouga said; “Michel Bagaragaza was transferred to a prison located hundreds of kilometres from Stockholm”, the Swedish capital. At the time of his sentencing, the tribunal found that Bagaragaza had shown genuine remorse for his actions and had provided invaluable assistance to the Prosecution in its investigations. A member of Habyarimana’s inner circle (Akazu) that planned and executed the Genocide, Bagaragaza was initially charged with conspiracy to commit genocide, Genocide, and in the alternative, complicity in Genocide.He voluntarily surrendered to the tribunal in 2005. Ends

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Bagaragaza transferred to Sweden