Survivors Fund (SURF) is supporting the request by our partner organisation IBUKA for leave to make submissions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in connection with the prosecutor’s sentencing appeals of case number ICTR-00-56 l .

The Amicus Brief reads:

As the leading victims’ rights organization in Rwanda, IBUKA requests that the Appeals Chamber grant it leave to make submissions as amicus curiae, pursuant to Rule 74 of the ICTR Rules of Procedure and Evidence (“Rules”), in connection with the Prosecutor’s appeal from the sentences imposed against Major General Augustin Bizimungu, Major General Augustin Ndindliyimana, Major François-Xavier Nsuwonemeye, and Captain Innocent Sagahutu.

 

The crimes committed by Major General Augustin Bizimungu, Major General Augustin Ndindliyimana, Major François-Xavier Nsuwonemeye, and Captain Innocent Sagahutu shock the conscience.  But, the sentences the Trial Chamber imposed – time served to 30-years imprisonment – are grossly inadequate to redress the horrors these military leaders unleashed against thousands of innocent victims.

 

IBUKA does not seek to submit an amicus brief out of a blind desire for vengeance or “eye-for-an-eye” justice.  No sentence available to the Tribunal could erase the loss and pain inflicted by these offenders.  As representatives of the victims of the Rwandan genocide, IBUKA seeks only to have the victims’ collective voice heard so that the Tribunal can fashion sentences that better reflect its mission of preventing impunity and its commitment to doing justice to the victims’ memory.

We are posting here a full version of the Motion for Leave and Amicus Brief.