36,000 genocide suspects freed from Rwandan jails

Thousands of Rwandan prisoners began streaming out of jail after a government decision to free 36,000 inmates, the majority of whom have confessed to taking part in the country's 1994 genocide.

The cabinet approved the provisional mass release to unclog the central African country's jails - which are overflowing with more than 80,000 inmates.

The prisoners being released - many of whom will face traditional courts in their home communities - include the sick, elderly and people who were minors when first jailed.

Officials said nine out of 10 prisoners to be freed have confessed to, but did not plan, the massacre of 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in 1994.

"To me this is a miracle from God," Mariana Kakuze said, leaving a prison in the capital Kigali yesterday.

Born in 1927, she had served 10 years in jail accused of killing two Tutsi neighbours during the genocide. "I had lost hope of leaving this prison," she said outside the high-walled jail surrounded by barbed wire.

Several trucks lined up to take those freed to education camps across the mountainous country where they are expected to undergo instruction on justice and reconciliation for a month before returning to their villages.

Stripped of their pink prison uniform, some inmates were carried out on stretchers, while the elderly gripped wooden sticks to help them walk free.

The mass release angered some genocide survivors who witnessed the release of up to 24,000 inmates in 2003 and another 4,000 last year. In the latest release, about 29,000 were due out yesterday and the remaining 7,000 next week.

Rwanda's chief prosecutor, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, said that the release of most prisoners was provisional.

"Those who have confessed to genocide crimes will have to face the gacaca [meaning grass because they meet in open spaces] courts," he said. The courts were launched in 2002 to deal with the backlog of suspects awaiting trial in the conventional courts.

Jeanette Mukasine, a survivor of the genocide, said yesterday that justice had not been done.

"It will now be useless to attend these gacaca courts," she said, watching a procession of people climbing in to waiting trucks. "These people will stick together and hide the truth."

Focusing on confession and apology, the gacaca courts have been designed to ease the way to national reconciliation. They usually result in shorter sentences, while some who have confessed and asked for forgiveness have been set free.

Eleven years after the genocide, Rwanda is still struggling to emerge from the 100-day spasm of killings by extremists from the Hutu majority who typically targeted their Tutsi neighbours and in some cases relatives.

The alleged main leaders of the genocide are being tried by the UN war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. The court was set up in 1994 to judge crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity but so far has only convicted about 12 people.