Rwanda’s semi-traditional gacaca courts have 54 genocide related cases left to complete before winding up their activities in December this year, according to the Executive Secretary of Gacaca services. Some of these include appeals.
According to the IRIN news agency, a Human Rights Watch report has rekindled debate on whether the Rwandan government “betrayed” women who were raped during the 1994 genocide by letting community-based gacaca courts process their cases.
The Gacaca Courts tasked with trying perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide will be officially closed in December 2011, the Minister for Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama, has said.
The Hirondelle News Agency reports that the gacaca courts, which were created in 2001 as an attempt to try the bulk of Rwanda’s genocide suspects, had not wound up their proceedings by the end of March. This was the courts’ second failed deadline as trials were expected to have concluded in February.
Ibuka, the main organization of Rwandan genocide survivors, brought the question of survivors’ murders before both houses of the Rwandan parliament. According to Ibuka, twenty-six genocide survivors were murdered in 2009 in Rwanda. Nine women and several children are said to be among the victims.
On March 6, 2010, Augustin Mugemanyi, the former administrative and financial director of the Rwandan Prosecutor’s Office, will be tried on appeal before a Gacaca court in Kigali. He is to answer charges of rape and other sexual abuses during the 1994 genocide.
In “Gacaca Courts Wind Up Proceedings,” the Hirondelle News Agency reports that gacaca courts, which were created in 2001 to prosecute the bulk of Rwanda’s genocide suspects, are expected to wind up their proceedings by the end of February 2010. 1,461 cases have yet to be concluded by the courts.
The Hirondelle News Agency reports that Kigali businessman Laurent Magambo was sentenced to life in prison after having been found guilty of rape during the 1994 genocide. The judgment was delivered by a gacaca court of Nyakabanda, which found that Magambo had raped a young Tutsi woman who was eight months pregnant.
On 22 October 2009, the Hirondelle News Agency in Arusha reported that a Kigali gacaca court confirmed the life sentence for Martin Habimana, a prosperous businessman convicted of rape on his first hearing, June 29. Habimana, in his forties, hails from Nyanza (Southern Rwanda). He was convicted for the rape of a young Tutsi woman he confined on the pretext of protecting her from killers.
The Hirondelle News Agency reports that a semi-traditional court in Kigali sentenced on Monday two men found guilty of rape during the 1994 genocide to life in imprisonment in isolation. Martin Habimana and Vianney Habimana were tried by the gacaca court of Nyakabanda.
