[JURIST] Accused Rwanda war crimes suspect Michel Bagaragaza [TrialWatch profile; ICTR materials] was transferred [ICTR press release] from the Hague back to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] in Arusha, Tanzania Wednesday after a Dutch court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to try his case. In August 2007, the ICTR revoked [JURIST report] a previous order transferring Bagaragaza's case to a local court in the Netherlands after the country expressed doubt that its court system could handle the trial. In 2006, the ICTR denied [JURIST report] prosecutors' request to transfer Bagaragaza's trial to Norway because Norway did not have a specific law against genocide.

Bagaragaza surrendered [JURIST report] to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] in August 2005. Bagaragaza has been indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, and complicity in genocide, and is alleged to have ordered his own subordinates and others to kill hundreds of Tutsi civilian refugees seeking shelter in a tea factory he supervised during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide [BBC backgrounder]. The UN News Centre has more.