Prosecutor Jallow addresses UN Security Council

he Prosecutor of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Justice Hassan B. Jallow, today, presented his latest six-monthly report on the activities of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism and the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR to the United Nations Security Council. This report was also the last report to the Security Council in respect of the ICTR with its imminent closure on 31 December 2015.

Prosecutor Jallow reported to the Security Council that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism has now fully taken over the functions of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR and continues to do so in respect of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTY as it also moves ever closer to completion of its mandate. Prosecutor Jallow further reported to the Security Council that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism continues to execute its mandate especially with regard to tracking of the remaining eight fugitives including the three earmarked for trial by the Mechanism, the provision of assistance to national jurisdictions, the monitoring of cases transferred to national jurisdictions, and appeals and other related litigation. The Prosecutor informed the Security Council that intense preparations have been underway in anticipation of appeals from the ICTY in the cases of Vojislav Šešelj, Radovan Karadžić, and Goran Hadzić in the months ahead. He also reported that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism continues to work closely with Rwandan authorities, INTERPOL, and the United States War Crimes Rewards Program under the State Department’s Office for Global Criminal Justice in a joint effort to locate and secure the arrest of all the fugitives and to transfer them to the Mechanism and Rwanda for trial.

Prosecutor Jallow informed the Security Council that in his view, with the 93 indictments and trials of those arrested, the ICTR has brought to account those who played a leading role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He stressed that the ICTR has been the premier judicial institution in elaborating the law on genocide, defining rape as a crime of genocide, and in elaborating the link between sexual violence and genocide. Prosecutor Jallow also informed the Security Council that the work of the ICTR and its jurisprudence, practices and procedures provide significant lessons for national courts and other international tribunals and that the documentation of such lessons and practices which had already commenced in the closing years of the ICTR should now be continued by others for the benefit of future generations.

Prosecutor Jallow thanked many for their critical and indispensable support to the ICTR over the years. He reserved special gratitude to the Security Council, the Secretary General, the UN Secretariat and the Office of Legal Affairs and other organs of the United Nations for their constant support and cooperation. He also thanked his predecessors Richard Goldstone, Louise Arbor, and Carla Del Ponte for their valuable contribution to the work of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR.