The United Nations legacy of international criminal justice: Part 2 of the analysis of the acquitted and released men dying unfree in Niger

Allison Turner
Turner Legal Services, Montreal
aturner.legal@proton.me

In a recent article published in the previous IBA War Crimes Committee e-Bulletin on the acquitted and released men dying under the care of the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (the ‘Mechanism’), I described their four-year long protracted crisis and identified the lack of collaboration with their lawyers as impeding safe relocation. With the imminent closure of the Mechanism, the article suggested the UN rule out refoulement and consider any number of the practical measures suggested to resettle the men.

Less than a month after the publication of my article, the Mechanism set a temporal limit to its duty of care toward the men finding that it ‘no longer has a legal or judicial obligation to provide financial assistance’ after 31 December 2026, and concluding that sending them to Rwanda was ‘durable solution’. The decision, stemming from a request for sustenance funds, sheds light on two obstacles to the men’s safe resettlement not previously discussed: (1) Rwandan government actions thwarting safe relocation prospects; and (2) UN actions enabling Rwanda’s interference.

With full knowledge of the men’s categorical refusal to go to Rwanda, the Judge instructed the Registrar to negotiate ‘safety guarantees’ on their behalf, albeit on the apparent condition: ‘if they accept to be relocated in Rwanda’.

The Judge recalled his 2022 decision where he stated that ‘all appropriate and available judicial relief’ had been extended to the men in Niger, and ‘the primary avenue for redressing this crisis lies in political, diplomatic, and administrative efforts undertaken by the Registrar under the supervision of the President and with the President’s referral of this matter to the Security Council.’

So why, one might ask, is the Judge involved again in this political, diplomatic and administrative matter? What is behind the apparent plan to send the men into harm’s way after protecting them from Rwanda for more than two decades? The procedural history leading up to this latest decision, is instructive.

Background

In February 2022, the Mechanism issued an order to the Registrar to return the men to Arusha, which was not complied with, and sent the chilling signal that sending the men to Rwanda ‘cannot be excluded’.

When legal fees to protect the men’s rights before local courts consumed the men’s UN sustenance stipend (intended to last their first year) they asked the Mechanism to replenish the funds. The request was denied. When survival became precarious, the men filed an urgent motion for additional funds before the Mechanism Judge who found that the Mechanism had:

‘the duty to ensure the welfare of the [men] pending their relocation and that, while such duty of care does not continue indefinitely following their relocation, in the particular circumstance of the present case, where the relocation appears not to have been carried out in accordance with the full terms of the Relocation Agreement, the Mechanism’s duty of care continues and should encompass financial assistance, to the extent that the [men] have not been given the opportunity to identify opportunities to support themselves in line with the original terms of the Relocation Agreement.’

The Judge ordered the Registry to provide an additional lump sum payment of US$10,000 to each man.

As this was an administrative matter, Anatole Nsengiyumva (1950-2024) sought an order from the President to the Registrar to issue the 2024 stipend. In the meantime, the President learned that the Registrar was replenishing the stipend. Rather than finding Nsengiyumva’s request to be moot, the President decided that the Registrar lacked competence to pay the stipend and that he had ‘pre-empted a judicial determination’, even though no motion had been filed. The President instructed the Registrar to ‘refrain from dispensing any subsistence payments’ to the men for the year 2024 or beyond in the absence of a judicial order and assigned the consideration of the stipend request to a judge – who then ordered the Registry to make the additional lump sum payment.

The 2024 Order and the 2025 Decision

On a motion for the next stipend, the Mechanism Judge issued an unanticipated Order to Show Cause surmising that it was unlikely a safe relocation state would be found in the near future or that any African country would accept the men on their territory ‘without the Republic of Rwanda’s tacit approval’.

The opinion effectively relied on a (tacit) tolerance for Rwanda’s political influence impacting resettlement efforts as conveyed in a 2023 report by the Registrar which also stated that ‘similar sentiments [had] been expressed by several […] diplomats in and outside the African continent.’ To date, the Rwandan government has not been requested to respect the men’s rights and autonomy, or to refrain from actions that can potentially interfere with resettlement.

The Security Council (UNSC) first signalled its openness to refoulement in its Resolution 2529. The Council noted with concern the ‘problems’ the Mechanism faced to relocate the men and emphasised the importance of finding expeditious and durable solutions to these problems ‘including as part of a reconciliation process’ (sic) – a possible allusion to one of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s (ICTR) stated aims, as if forcibly sending the men to Rwanda against their will ‘contribute(s) to the process of national reconciliation and to the restoration and maintenance of peace’.

The Order ‘emphasised’ the UNSC Resolution 2740 which warned that:

‘decisions on the relocation of persons who have been acquitted or completed their sentences should take into account inter alia the readiness of the State of origin to accept its nationals, the consent or any objections raised by the individuals to be relocated and the availability of other relocation States’.

It ‘considered’ Rwanda to be a state ‘obligated to accept the Relocated Persons onto its territory – as their country of nationality and origin – and that the Government of Rwanda has consistently expressed its preference and readiness to accept the [men] in Rwanda’. It then decided it was necessary to address: (1) the legal and factual appropriateness of whether [the men] were able to relocate to Rwanda; and, (2) if relocation in Rwanda proves to be a safe and durable solution for [them], whether the duty of care of the Mechanism towards them, encompassing financial assistance in Niger, shall continue in 2025.

Recalling 2022 dicta that the men’s voices and views be heard and ‘thoroughly considered in conformity with national and international norms’ before being sent to Rwanda, the Judge invited the men to submit written submissions showing cause as to: (1) why they cannot relocate to Rwanda potentially with appropriate guarantees of safety to alleviate any concerns they may have regarding fears of being put on trial or otherwise harmed; and (2) why the Judge ‘should not terminate the Mechanism’s financial assistance to them in Niger, if relocation in Rwanda appears to be a safe and durable solution’. After more than two decades of UN protection, the UN was asking the men to explain why the principle of non-refoulement should continue to apply.

In their submissions, the men explained in detail with numerous examples why Rwanda is not safe, notably, inter alia, because:

• it considers them as enemies of the state;
• the government-controlled press reports they are ‘considered to be among the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi’;
• Rwanda’s UN representative told the UNSC in 2021 there was evidence in some of the men’s so-called ‘criminal records’ that they had been engaging in subversive activities - without providing examples;
• Rwanda has a decades-long record of providing false assurances to the outside world only to do harm to the persons transferred there;
• Rwanda’s diplomatic assurances cannot be relied upon;
• and, notable decisions from the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights have found Rwanda responsible for serious violations of human rights.

In sum, Rwandan government officials and others have been engaging in a decades long aggressive and relentless persecution campaign.

In his 21 November 2025 decision, the Judge described the men’s submissions as referring to ‘reports from international and non-governmental organizations concerning the general situation in Rwanda, non-binding jurisprudence regarding other individuals, as well as chosen statements and opinions from certain Rwandan officials’, and weighed them against the so-called ‘consistent diplomatic assurances by the Rwandan Government’. In his view, the threat the men described was ‘very general and speculative at this juncture, especially given the international scrutiny and visibility of the present matter’. He called sending them to Rwanda ‘a safe and durable solution’.

The decision further reports that in September 2024, Rwanda’s officials and others made statements on Rwandan national television and social media representing a potential relocation offer by a safe state as ‘an effort to disrupt the security of Rwanda and support the ideology of genocide’, a quintessential illustration of the intense toxicity of the persecution campaign.

Discussion

For years, the UNSC has been reporting that the Mechanism is ‘facing problems’ relocating the men. The Mechanism’s narrative, in turn, suggests there is no state willing to accept them. Both claims are objectively verifiable and unsubstantiated.

The problems are the absence of a relocation mechanism in the governing statutes as noted by the UNSC in Resolution 2529, the inaction or concerted ineffectual action of the Mechanism and other UN entities, and Rwanda’s campaign of persecution and political interference, not a purported dearth of potential relocation states.

In its 2022 annual report to the UNSC, the Mechanism reported that its ‘greatest challenge’ concerned the fate of the men, but then it demonstrated a rapid and sharp decline in effort to relocate them, failing to take even the most basic of steps.

The Registrar contacted approximately 23.5 per cent of all UN Member States (45 or 46 governments) and held two or three meetings over the four-year period.

The Registrar repeatedly reported contacting and leveraging ‘various United Nation’s entities with country presence to assist the Mechanism in finding long-term solutions to the relocation challenges and continue the visibility of the United Nations Security Council’s repeated calls for Member States’ cooperation in receiving the Relocated Persons on their territory’ (sic).

However, there is no evidence, he communicated with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), even after the men filed asylum requests with the UNHCR in Niger in 2022.

Prior to that, in 2008, the ICTR Appeals Chamber requested the Registrar ‘to make enquiries with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and solicit its assistance’ to relocate André Ntagerura, acquitted of all charges in 2004. At least tacitly recognised by five UN Appeal Judges as a genuine refugee, Ntagerura today requires a medical evacuation to a facility in a safe country that is waiting to admit him. Medical evacuation requests to the Mechanism have not yielded a positive response and those to the UNHCR (Niger and Geneva) have had no response at all.

Since 2004, the Mechanism has signed one agreement with Niger to resettle the men, and they were placed under house arrest. In contrast, the UN signed bilateral agreements with 22 countries in Europe and Africa for convicted persons to serve their sentences.

Of the 45 or 46 countries the Mechanism contacted to resettle the men, just six of them figure among the ‘sentence states’. Of the 16 sentence states that remain, the Mechanism only reached out to Rwanda. If its decisions to relocate the men since 2022 are based on criteria, they are unknown and unscrutinised.

The Informal Working Group on International Tribunals (IWG), a UNSC subsidiary body, was established to consider ICTR and Mechanism matters. Examining reports of the Mechanism and of the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) - on the evaluation of the Mechanism’s methods and work - the IWG presented its findings or recommendations for the Council’s consideration. The penultimate paragraph of its final report dated 30 December 2025 to the President of the Council reads:

‘Amid these successes, the Mechanism faced persisting challenges with the relocation of acquitted persons and convicted persons that have served their sentences and are unable to secure legal residency in the Niger, and with getting additional enforcement States in which convicted persons can serve their sentences.’

No recommendations were offered.

For its part, the vision of the OIOS is a ‘strong and accountable United Nations, fortified by world-class internal oversight’ whose mission is to deliver ‘objective oversight results that make a difference’.  However, there is no evidence the OIOS reviewed, examined or reported on the Mechanism’s resettlement decision-making criteria or work method, or made any recommendations.

The UN’s tolerance for Rwanda’s persecution campaigns against the men and political interference with their resettlement, and the Mechanism’s lack of effort to resettle the men exacerbates this situation that led to the untimely deaths of Tharcisse Muvunyi, Anatole Nsengiyumva and Protais Zigiranyirazo.

It’s time to get off the train headed to refoulement and to safely resettle the men.

Now.