Seeking Justice: The Long Hunt For Rwanda's Killers

Kigali, April 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Apr, 2019 ) :The houses along the quiet tree-lined street look just like the normal homes found all across the Rwandan capital.

But behind the walls of the three adjoining villas in Kigali are the headquarters of a global operation involving investigators and prosecutors who are working to track down the very worst killers of Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Inside, French investigators have come to talk to witnesses and to gather evidence. A Norwegian team is also on site.

All are supported by Rwanda's Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit (GFTU), a special team created in 2007 to prosecute the architects behind the slaughter of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi victims.

"The mandate was to investigate and compile case files for the fugitives who were still at large," said Faustin Nkusi, spokesman for the National Public Prosecution Authority, which oversees the unit.

After the bloodshed, many perpetrators escaped.

Some were arrested and taken to the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania. That court closed in 2015 after several dozen convictions.

For many of those who carried out the killings, justice has been at a local level through community tribunals known as "gacaca" courts.

Between 2005 and 2012, these courts put nearly two million people on trial, with some two-thirds of cases resulting in a conviction.

But the search for justice continues.