August 5, 1999
August 5, 1999
Lawyers Committee Applauds Surrender of
Rwandan to War Crimes TribunalNew York, August 5, 1999 --The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights welcomes the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which upheld U.S. District Judge John Rainey’s ruling to order the surrender of Elizaphan Ntakirutimana to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
"This decision is tangible proof of U.S. support for the rule of law," said Michael Posner, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee. "It sets an important domestic precedent as Mr. Ntakirutimana is the first person that the U.S. has been asked to surrender to either of the international criminal tribunals. It also sends an important signal to other nations that they should cooperate with the ad hoc criminal tribunals."
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who is a Hutu and was the chief Pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Rwanda, was taken into custody in Laredo, Texas in 1996. Two ICTR indictments charge him with genocide and crimes against humanity for the killings of thousands of Tutsis in Mugonero and Bisesero, Rwanda, in the spring of 1994. He has been fighting surrender in the U.S. court system since his arrest.
U.S. District Court Judge Rainey’s decision in August 1998 overturned the Texas District Court’s decision in December 1987, which refused to approve the Justice Department’s request to surrender Ntakirutimana for trial by the International Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. The Texas District Court argued that surrender would be unconstitutional in the absence of a treaty and that the evidence of genocide was insufficient to establish "probable cause."
The U.S. Government then re-filed its request. In an amicus brief, filed by Debevoise & Plimpton, the Lawyers Committee argued that surrender was not unconstitutional since Congress can properly authorize extradition by statute, and that the judge magistrate had not applied proper standards in concluding there was no "probable cause." Judge Rainey accepted these arguments when he ruled that Ntakirutimana's surrender is constitutional and that the indictments show probable cause to sustain the genocide charges. Ntakirutimana can ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the latest decision.
Additional information, including the Lawyers Committee’s amicus brief in support of the United States' request for the surrender to the Rwanda Tribunal of Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, see Rwanda Tribunal: Surrender of Elizaphan Ntakirutimana.