Michel Bagaragaza the former Managing Director of OCIR-Tea, the controlling organisation for the tea industry in Rwanda during the genocide period, entered a plea of guilty on 17 September to the count of complicity in genocide as contained in an amended indictment.

Bagaragaza, who voluntarily surrendered to the ICTR on 16 August 2005 initially pleaded not guilty to the four counts of which he was indicted including “genocide” and “conspiracy to commit genocide”.
 

Bagaragaza was later transferred to the UN prison quarters of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s (ICTY) detention unit on 18 August 2005. The request came from the ICTR Prosecutor owing to security concerns related to Bagaragaza’s voluntary surrender to the tribunal.
 

Referral Orders Refused
Following the refusal of the ICTR’s Prosecutor request to have the trial moved to Norway on 19 May 2006 owing to the fact that Norway does not have a specific provision against genocide, the prosecutor requested the trial be moved to the Netherlands on December 12 2006.
 

On 13 April 2007 the ICTR-Trial Chamber III accepted the transfer of the case. However, in a similar case involving another Rwandan, The Hague District Court afterwards stated that the Dutch Courts do not have any jurisdiction in trying such a case. The referral order was therefore revoked and Bagaragaza was transferred back to Arusha, Tanzania on 20 May 2008.
 

Sentencing
The Chamber scheduled the hearing of character witnesses for the Defence in preparation for sentencing on 2 November 2009, following the Prosecutor’s presentation of the new indictment and pleas agreement.
 

The plea agreement was accepted by Trial Chamber III, composed of Judges
Vagn Joensen, Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, and Gberdao Gustave Kam.