Prosecution requests ICTR to reject Uwinkindi’s application

KIGALI - The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has requested the Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber to reject Jean Uwinkindi’s application, asking it to reconsider the decision confirming his transfer to Rwanda for trial. The former clergyman is on the verge of being transferred to Rwanda to face charges related to Genocide and crimes against humanity later this month following a ruling by the same tribunal approving his transfer. Through his lawyer, Uwikindi is requesting the Chamber to abandon its interim order of January 26, 2012, affirming his impending transfer to Rwanda. A decision authorizing the transfer of Uwinkindi’s case was confirmed by the Appeals Chamber on December 16, 2011, after dismissing his appeal, opposing the move. Uwinkindi’s lawyers argue that he should not be moved from the ICTR custody before an operational monitoring mechanism by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), as previously ordered by Trial Chamber, is put in place. However, the ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Boubacar Jallow, who recently delivered case files to Rwanda’s prosecution, on Monday explained that the defence’s action was both procedurally and substantively flawed.“Uwinkindi fails to demonstrate any exceptional circumstances meriting reconsideration of the Chamber’s decision,” he said. “His professed fear of imminent transfer to Rwanda without the monitoring mechanism being in place is unfounded and, at best, premature given the time remaining for the Registrar to comply with the Trial Chamber’s decision”. Uwinkindi is supposed to be transferred to Rwanda no later than February 23. Jallow said that he is confident that the Registrar will meet this deadline and that the Prosecution stands ready to provide whatever assistance the Registrar may require to fully implement the Trial Chamber’s referral order as affirmed by this (Appeals) Chamber. The Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga could not comment on the new developments in Uwinkindi’s transfer but affirmed that Rwanda is readily waiting for the transfer. “I will leave it to the parties to argue and the Chamber to decide. On our part, want to remain focussed on the work to be done once Uwinkindi arrives,” Ngoga told The New Times. Jean Uwinkindi, a former Pentecostal pastor, was arrested in Uganda in June 2010 on counts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity. He is alleged to have led several groups of armed killers targeting Tutsi civilians in multiple attacks that spanned the 100 days of the genocide between April and July 1994. At the time Uwinkindi was pastor in charge of the Pentecostal Church of Kayenzi in Nyamata, south east of Kigali. Closely aligned with the extremist wing of the MRND party, Uwinkindi is alleged to have sought the assistance of gendarmes within the ex-FAR to exterminate the local Tutsi population. After he fled in July 1994, 2,000 corpses were discovered near his church.

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Prosecution requests ICTR to reject Uwinkindi’s application