Rwanda and a UN court trying those accused of orchestrating the country's 1994 genocide neared a deal today after three days of talks to move future trials into Rwanda's justice system.
All that remains is for UN lawyers in New York to sign off on the agreement, said a spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in Arusha in northern Tanzania.
"It will be very soon. New York is aware of the importance and the sensitivity of the matter," spokesman Mr Roland Amoussouga said. The tribunal said in August it would move more than 40 cases that have not yet started to Rwanda, but the two sides had disagreed on specifics, such as whether suspects or convicts would face the death penalty and if the United Nations could appoint court monitors to ensure fairness.
Of the cases to be transferred to Rwanda early next year most suspects are still at large, but at least five are in custody in Arusha.
The tribunal was set up to try the masterminds of the 1994 genocide, when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were systematically butchered by Hutu extremists. But Rwanda has long accused the ICTR of inefficiency and mismanagement, and lobbied to move the cases to its courts.
The transfer came about because the tribunal is racing to meet a U.N. deadline to finish its investigations by the end of this year, and all trials by 2008. In the 10 years since it was established, the tribunal has indicted 81 people for genocide-related crimes, convicted 20 and acquitted three.