JURIST - Paper Chase: UN tribunal cancels transfer of Rwanda genocide case to Netherlands court

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website] Friday revoked a previous order transferring the case against 1994 Rwandan genocide [BBC backgrounder] suspect Michel Bagaragaza [TrialWatch profile; ICTR materials] to a local court in the Netherlands. In addition to canceling the transfer, the ICTR issued a new warrant for Bagaragaza requesting that the Netherlands "arrest and transfer the accused to the tribunal." The transfer was canceled upon the request of ICTR prosecutors after the Netherlands expressed doubt that its national court system could handle the trial.

Before transferring Bagaragaza to the Netherlands, the ICTR in 2006 rejected a prosecution attempt to transfer Bagaragaza to Norway [JURIST report], ruling that Norway didn't have a specific law against genocide. After his subsequent transfer to the Netherlands, Bagaragaza was the first defendant to be transferred from the ICTR to a national court. AFP has more.

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