“It’s important that we provide justice for the victims of genocide, the Netherlands is no free haven for people who committed these horrors." With these words, MP Coşkun Çörüz welcomes legislation to prosecute war criminals for crimes like genocide, committed up to 40 years ago. Several MP’s confirm this to Radio Netherlands, together representing a majority vote in the Dutch Lower Chamber.

By Ruben Koops

Minister of Justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin has sent a bill to parliament for consideration containing this new legislation. It will empower prosecutors in the Netherlands to effectively bring international war criminals to justice.

Enthusiasm
Fred Teeven is the MP for the Liberal Party, the biggest faction in parliament. “I used to be an international prosecutor myself, and this is exactly what we need!” Teeven says. “For example, we weren’t able to go after a couple of Rwandese criminals that sought refuge in The Netherlands, but I have heard that their cases are now ready for court”.

Teeven’s enthusiasm is shared  by his fellow representative Coşkun Çörüz, MP for the Christian Democratic People’s Party. He is especially happy with the retro-active clause in the ‘Genocide Bill’. It states that when the bill is signed into law, it will be effective for crimes that have been committed decades ago. Çörüz: “Usually one can’t be convicted of something that at the time of occurrence was not written into law. But genocide is too serious to let go.” Labour Party MP Jeroen Recourt shares this view: “According to the European Convention on Human Rights and its jurisprudence, it matters if a crime like this is illegal at the time it was committed”.

The Netherlands has been confronted with a growing number of alleged war criminals, in particular former military and intelligence officers from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is suspected that war criminals also hide among the Rwandese refugee community in The Netherlands.

Extradition
“The Rwandese community is worried about this new genocide legislation”, says Olivier Nyirubugara, PhD student at the University of Amsterdam who claims to be very well connected with the Rwandese community in the Netherlands. “Let’s suppose that convicted war criminals will be extradited to Rwanda, they’ll be locked up forever, because judges in Kigali are politically influenced” Nyirubugara tells RNW. “When prosecuted in the Netherlands, suspects would at least have a lawyer. In Rwanda these people would get a category 1 status, and are not heard of again”.

But Labour MP Jeroen Recourt, also in favour of the proposed legislation, insists that suspects prosecuted under this new law will not be extradited to Rwanda: “An extradition request is usually put out when the country wants to prosecute the suspect itself. In this case they are prosecuted here, so there is no need to send them to Rwanda.”

Recourt also points out that the human rights situation is not what it should be in Rwanda. On extraditing somebody to Rwanda: “You shouldn’t want to do that”

The bill is expected to move forward next Wednesday, and will be debated on in a September 29 Judicial Committee hearing.