French Justice's Endeavours to Substitute for the ICTR
* Research and teaching assistant, Chair of Criminal Law, University of Geneva; Member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal.
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Abstract |
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In 2006, a French investigating judge issued international arrest warrants against nine Rwandan officials closely allied to current Rwandan President Kagame. They are accused of premeditated murder and terrorism, for having planned and ordered the April 1994 attack on the airplane in which former Rwandan President Habyarimana and others were killed. This article discusses the legal qualification of the offences charged in Judge Bruguière's order and the likely consequences of this French judicial action from the point of view of French criminal procedure. It also analyses why French national justice intervened and whether the ICTR would have jurisdiction over the nine suspects if the case were to be brought before it. It concludes that although it appears that the ICTR is unlikely to try the persons allegedly responsible for the 1994 attack, the recent arrest by German authorities of one of the nine suspects targeted in Judge Bruguière's order is likely to shed some light on the origins of this attack.