Rwanda Government to Release 30,000 Genocide Suspects

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
July 28, 2005 [/b]
Posted to the web July 27, 2005

By Grace Matsiko & Agencies
Kampala

THE Rwandan government plans to release about 30,000 detainees from the country's heavily congested prisons who are accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide, an official has said.

Rwanda's chief prosecutor, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, is quoted by news agencies as saying the exercise to release 30,000, out of the 70,000 genocide suspects may kick off tomorrow.

"Mucyo said releasing the 30,000 would help expedite trials but cautioned that the detainees were only being released provisionally and would not be given amnesty," IRIN, the UN's Regional Integrated News network quoted the prosecutor as saying.

"Those who committed crimes must still face the local courts known as 'gacaca', he said.

The Rwandan President, Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame released about 24,000 detainees in 2003.

The cabinet was expected to give a green light to the list of 30,000 detainees drawn by the Prosecution office before end of this week.

"We hope this exercise will kick off this Friday,"Mucyo told IRIN. Currently 70,000 out of the 87,000 people in Rwandan prisons are accused of genocide-related crimes. Many have never been put on trial since their arrest.

Ninety percent of the people to be released have confessed to playing a key role in the genocide, Mucyo said, but they do not fall in the category of the top planners.

Many are also sick or elderly. Others were below 18 years of age when they were imprisoned. Before the detainees return home they will be taken for a month of education on issues of national reconciliation and unity, Mucyo said.

Some survivors of the genocide have complained about detainees being liberated saying that they have made false confessions in order to secure their release.

The violence that was sparked by the death of the late Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, when his jet was blown up in mysterious circumstances, claimed over 800,000 people mostly ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu.

This will not end well.