This year – 2020 – Major Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, the former Commander of the RECCE (Reconnaissance) Battalion in Rwanda in April 1994, has completed his full sentence of twenty years, rendered by the Trial Chamber II of the ICTR in 2011, for crimes for which he was acquitted on appeal in February 2014. And he still is not free – he has lived in a “safe house” in Arusha, Tanzania since his acquittal – now for six years.

It is obvious there is something fundamentally wrong here.

In my paper, “The Treatment of the ICTR Acquitted, the ‘Achilles Heel’ of International Criminal Justice,” available here I discuss this situation and identify proposals towards its remedy.  I originally wrote this paper for the 2017 IntLawGrrls 10th Birthday Conference in March 2017, and updated it in 2019 with additional information on the acquitted at the ICC (as of early June 2019).

I’ve also written on this blog in 2015 at https://ilg2.org/2015/11/21/litigating-compensation-for-the-acquitted/ about efforts (unsuccessful) to win compensation for Major Nzuwonemeye.  Chief Charles A. Taku and I represented the client at trial and on appeal, and in his request for compensation.  Defence Counsel Peter Robinson has represented him in other post-acquittal relief.

Unfortunately, there are still acquitted persons (and those who have completed their sentences) in the “safe-house” in Arusha and this travesty of justice continues.  This is a constant reminder that international courts and tribunals need to have the political and legal will to implement the acquittals which they render.