Rwandan genocide suspects transferred from a UN court to face justice in their home country will be guaranteed a fair trial, the court’s chief prosecutor said yesterday.

Under intense pressure to meet a UN deadline to wrap up investigations by the end of this year and all trials by 2008, the UN court announced last week it would hand over about 40 cases to national courts in Kigali.

“I am confident that the Rwandan government would ensure that fair trials take place here,” Hassan Bubacar Jallow told Reuters in an interview in Rwanda’s capital Kigali on yesterday.

All trials so far have been held at the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), set up to try the masterminds of the 1994 genocide, when 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

In the 10 years since it was established, the tribunal has indicted 81 people for genocide-related crimes. It has convicted 20 and acquitted three.

Of the 40-plus cases to be transferred to Rwanda early next year most are still at large, Jallow said, but at least five are in custody in Arusha, Tanzania.

Rwanda has long criticised the tribunal, accusing it of inefficiency and mismanagement despite its multi-million dollar budget.

Jallow, a former Gambian justice minister, announced last week that the ICTR would start to transfer cases and convicted prisoners to Rwanda early next year, in a sign of improving relations between Rwanda and the court.

Rwanda jails are already overflowing with genocide suspects, however, and most have yet to stand trial.

The tiny central African country also received harsh criticism from human rights organisations for its handling of the trial of former president Pasteur Bizimungu, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail last month.

The 1994-2000 presidency of Bizimungu, a Hutu, was meant to symbolise post-genocide reconciliation, but he was accused by the Tutsi-led government of committing crimes and inciting ethnic violence after he resigned the presidency.

Amnesty International said his trial was politically motivated and that “the conditions of his arrest and detention, and the trial itself, fell far short of international standards of fairness”.

The ICTR and the Rwandan government are finalising an agreement that will waive the death penalty for cases transferred from Arusha and the tribunal will post monitors in local courts to ensure fair trials, Jallow said.

“If we are not satisfied that a case is being properly prosecuted, we retain the right to take the case back to the tribunal and have it prosecuted there,” he said, adding that the ICTR was in a race against time.

<B>Burundi closes border with Congo after massacre</B>

Burundi has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo after more than 160 Tutsi Congolese refugees were massacred at a camp in the west of the tiny central African country, the army said yesterday.

The Burundian army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza said the government had also beefed up security along the border and in refugee camps to prevent more attacks ahead of the mass burial of the victims of the massacre later on Monday. Burundi’s rebel Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL) claimed responsibility for the killings but several other rebel groups and militia operating from inside Congo have been accused by different parties of taking part.

“The border with the DRC (the Democratic Republic of Congo) has been closed since Sunday for security reasons. We have also deployed more troops along the border to stop more attacks from Congo,” Manirakiza said. The border is normally very busy with traders from the Congolese town of Uvira crossing to Burundi to buy and sell food and exchange US dollars in the black market.

Up to 20,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees have taken shelter in UN camps in Burundi after fleeing eastern Congo, terrified of being targeted by government troops, local militia and civilians there.

Most of the victims of the Friday night massacre were women, children and babies, shot dead and burned in their shelters at the Gatumba refugee transit camp.

The camp is some 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the capital city of Bujumbura, near Burundi’s border with Congo.

The UN Security Council condemned the massacre and urged Burundi and Congo to work together to investigate the killings and quickly bring those responsible to justice.

<I>“Rwanda has long criticised the tribunal, accusing it of inefficiency and mismanagement despite its multi-million dollar budget.”</I>

<B>Finbarr O’Reilly</B>