An estimated one million Rwandans are expected to face charges in traditional or "gacaca" village courts trying perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, an official said today.
"Drawing from the experience and figures accruing from the pilot trials, we estimate a figure slightly above one million people [an eighth of the population] that are supposed to be tried under the gacaca courts," said Mr Domitilla Mukantaganzwa, executive secretary of National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions.
The courts are a revamped version of a traditional form of justice that were introduced on an exploratory basis in 2002 to speed up the trials of people suspected of taking part in the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from April to June 1994.