Rwanda is to release a large number of prisoners accused of participating in the country’s 1994 genocide who have confessed to their roles in massacres that claimed the lives of up to a million people, the chief prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Jean de Dieu Mucyo said that ”several tens of thousands” of prisoners have made confessions while in detention but declined to say how many of them would be freed.
The release is set to coincide with the commemoration of the 10th anniversary in April of the 1994 genocide where members of the country’s Tutsi minority and Hutu sympathisers were killed by Hutu extremists. The move comes after 22 000 genocide suspects were released temporarily from the country’s overcrowded jails in May 2003, pending verdicts from the courts.
”Since then many prisoners have made confessions, above all in view of the deadline date”, said Mucyo, referring to a chance given to suspects to confess before March 15 and have their sentences reduced by as much as half.
This means that some suspects have served more time in jail than the sentences that would have been handed for their crimes, allowing for their release from jail.
International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that some 89 000 prisoners are crowded into the jails of the central African country. – Sapa-AFP