The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda suffered a major loss this past week with the untimely death of prosecutor Shyamlal Rajapaksa. His body was found in his Arusha home in Tanzania where the international tribunal is located. Mystery surrounds the forty-two year old’s death with explanations proffered from drug overdose to murder. What has been lost in the coverage of his death has been his accomplishment in life.
Shyamlal Rajapaksa was the son of the former Sri Lankan Minister for Health, George Rajapaksa, brother to current Sri Lankan MP, Nirupama Rajapaksa, and nephew to current Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. He accepted appointment to the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda in spite of a promising political career in his home country of Sri Lanka. According to Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Kenya, Rajapaksa had recently been promoted to Chief Prosecuter of the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, effective at the end of August.
Rajapaksa was educated in law in the United Kingdom where he attained an LL.B. and LL.M. After that he worked in the Sri Lankan Attorney General’s office before appointment to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. His surviving wife, Prashanthi Rajapaksa, is currently a prosecutor before the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia at The Hague.
Rajapaksa served as co-prosecutor in the “Government II” trial involving four former Rwandan Cabinet Ministers and accused war criminals. The case against them began in 2003 and closing arguments were entered in December of last year. Judgment is expected in mid-2010.
The four ex-Ministers include former Minister of Health, Casimir Bizimungu and former Liberal Party leader and ex-Minister of Trade, Justin Mugenzi. Bizimungu is alleged to have permitted the murder of Tutsi hospital patients, who were already casualties of the ethnically motivated attacks, and of Tutsi hospital staff during the 1994 Genocide. Mugenzi was an outspoken advocate of the Tutsi mass killings, often taking incitement of violence to the air waves. He was also known for making special visits across Rwanda during the genocide congratulating murderous mobs.
The four accused have already been acquitted of some of the charges against them on technical grounds. But the powerful testimony of hundreds of witnesses, and the touring of massacre sites in Rwanda (including hospitals under Bizimungu’s charge) should assure their conviction for very serious war crimes.
Thanks in no small part to Shyamlal Rajapaksa.
Rest in peace.
