Justice & rights

Covid-19, a bigger contributor to the ‘denied justice’

The covid-19 has greatly contributed to the delay of different genocide suspects’ trials which were planned to be tried in different European countries since the early 2020 but now are suspended to the unknown and uncertain dates.

According to Juvens Ntampuhwe the project coordinator of ‘Justice et memoire’ at RCN justice et democratie, a Belgian organization that support the international justice, ‘justice delayed, justice denied’ is one of the judicial principles. Since the outbreak of covid-19 those trials which were planned to happen in 2020 were postponed to the next dates to be determined.

The recent trial that was delayed once again is that of Claude Muhayimana that was supposed to be tried in France but didn’t happen due to covid-19, the trial was then postponed to February 2021, and was postponed again to the unknown date.

Other trials

“The trial of Emmanuel Nkunzuwimye and Ernest Gakwaya was planned to be tried in Belgium in the end of 2020, but due to covid-19 they never happened and so far no other notice on when they might be tried.” said Ntampuhwe

Nkunzuwimye and Gakwaya were previously supposed to be tried in the same trial as Fabien Neretse that happened in the end of 2019, but their cases were separated.

Felicien Kabuga, the famous funder of the genocide against Tutsis was to be sent to the Residual Mechanism for criminal tribunals at Arusha, but was sent to La Haye in Holland instead due to covid-19 and its insufficient handling in Tanzania.

The French judiciary says that the trials were postponed to the further notices because it could be difficult to host international witnesses in those trials in regard with covid-19 pandemic, but since the vaccine was issued, there’s a hope that trials will be resumed soon.

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