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ARUSHA, Tanzania, Sept 26 (AFP) - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has prepared a second courtroom to open Monday in order to speed up the trial of key suspects in the country's 1994 genocide, the tribunal said Friday.
The tribunal was created by the United Nations in November 1994 to try those held primarily responsible for the slaughter of between half a million and 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate members of the Hutu majority.
Until now the tribunal, based at a conference centre in Arusha in northern Tanzania, has had only one courtroom and so far no cases have reached their term due to a large number of delays and postponements.
In a statement, the tribunal's registrar, Agwu Okali, said the second courtroom was "a particularly timely development, given the considerable number of suspects and accused detained in Arusha."
Twenty-one of 32 people charged by the court are currently behind bars in Arusha. Another defendant is detained in the United States and two are imprisoned in Cameroon. The remaining eight are still at large.
The tribunal spokesman Bocar Sy said the susbtantive trial of former militia leader Georges Rutaganda would reopen in one court in Monday, while that of former district administrator of the western Rwandan town of Kibuye Clement Kayishema and businessman Obed Ruzindana would reopen in the other.
Accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, all three could be sentenced to life in prison.
The trial of the former mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, which was suspended on May 24 after 24 witnesses had been heard, is the most advanced of the cases so far heard by the tribunal and will resume on October 22.
str-at/nb/bb
