UN to shut down Arusha tribunal detention facility

Arusha. The United Nations Detention Facility (UNDF) in Arusha, which hosted convicts and suspects of the Rwanda genocide fugitives for years, is set for closure.

The 89 cell institution located in the high security prison on the outskirts of Arusha city will on February 28 be handed over to the Tanzania government.

Its closure signals the end of activities for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (the Mechanism), which was mandated to try the key suspects in the 1994 Rwandan mayhem.

The tribunal, or “mechanism,” took over the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which closed shop in December 2015 after convicting about 60 suspects.

The facility was exclusively mandated to hold individuals indicted for or suspected of having committed war crimes in Rwanda during the horrific killings that shocked the world.

Close to one million people, mainly the Tutsi ethnic group and some ‘moderate’ Hutus were hacked to death in the massacres triggered by the killing of former Rwanda leader Juvenal Habyarimana.

The UNDF had the capacity to hold 89 suspects/fugitives at a time and was handed over to the Mechanism, which took over the activities of the ICTR in 2016. At its peak, 51 people from more than 15 countries were confined in the facility, according to a press statement issued by the Mechanism yesterday.

Those confined in the early days included the former Rwandan Army Chief of Staff Augustine Bizimungu, the pop singer Simon Bikindi, along with former Minister of Defence Theoneste Bagosora. The other one is the UN Detention Unit maintained by the Mechanism, which is in The Hague, Netherlands and is where one of the alleged masterminds and financiers of the Rwanda genocide, Felicien Kabuga, is being tried.

The statement said the handover will be graced by the Registrar of the Mechanism, Abubacarr M. Tambadou, who will formally close the facility in readiness for the handover of the premises to the government.

Today’s ceremony will be attended by senior Mechanism representatives, stakeholders such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and high-level officials from the Tanzania government.

The ceremony will also be an occasion for about 30 Tanzanian prison officers to receive their certificates for recent training, which was scheduled to end yesterday (Wednesday). Having been opened in 1996, the UNDF is on record as being the first dedicated detention facility established and managed by the United Nations.

The closure of the facility takes place as nine of the fugitives acquitted of the Rwanda crimes or who completed their sentences by the ICTR remain stranded in Arusha, apparently with nowhere to go.

They are among scores of indicted fugitives released by the ICTR, with some of them having served their sentences but having nowhere to go as no country has shown interest in hosting them.

In recent years, the Mechanism has been pleading with the wiling countries to assist them, as they should be “free to start a new life, having served their sentences or never having been convicted in the first place.”

Those acquitted after serving their sentences or cleared of the charges are at liberty to settle in a country of their choice if not willing to return to their home country, Rwanda.