# ICTR Closes Its Doors (2015)

URL: https://allhistories.com/rwanda/timeline/2015-ictr-closes-its-doors
Location: Arusha, Tanzania
Themes: main-event

The UN Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in November 1994 to prosecute those most responsible for the genocide and other serious violations in 1994. Based in Arusha, Tanzania, it was the first international court to convict anyone of genocide, in the 1998 Akayesu judgment, and the first to recognise rape as an act of genocide. Rwanda had voted against its creation, objecting among other things to its exclusion of the death penalty and its location outside the country. Over two decades the ICTR indicted 93 people, including the former prime minister Jean Kambanda, military leaders such as Théoneste Bagosora and the founders of the RTLM radio station. It convicted 61 and acquitted 14, while some cases were transferred to national courts, including the first transfer to Rwanda of Jean Uwinkindi in 2012. Its last appeal judgment, in the Butare case, was delivered in December 2015, and the tribunal formally closed on 31 December. Remaining functions, including the hunt for fugitives such as Félicien Kabuga, passed to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. The ICTR left a vast archive and jurisprudence on genocide, though critics in Rwanda considered it slow and costly and others regretted that it never tried RPF crimes. At this point in the timeline (31 December 2015), the President of Rwanda was Paul Kagame (6 September 2010 – 18 August 2017). Government: the Prime Minister of Rwanda was Anastase Murekezi (24 July 2014 – 30 August 2017).

## Why it matters
The ICTR established foundational international law on genocide, and its closure handed unfinished cases to the UN Residual Mechanism.

Ruler at the Time: [Paul Kagame](https://allhistories.com/rwanda/rulers/paul-kagame)

Prime Minister of Rwanda: Anastase Murekezi (PSD)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda)
- [UN IRMCT — The ICTR in brief](https://unictr.irmct.org/en/tribunal)
- [Wikipedia — International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Residual_Mechanism_for_Criminal_Tribunals)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=International+Criminal+Tribunal+for+Rwanda)
- [Wikipedia — The Contemporary Republic (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda)