Question to the Attorney General:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in cases blocked by the UK Courts’ extradition of alleged genocidaires to the countries requesting their extradition in order to prosecute them there, whether there has been any consideration of prosecuting those alleged genocidaires in the UK on charges of genocide under the principle of universal jurisdiction; if so, what were the challenges; and what has been done to overcome them.

Before a prosecution can take place, there has to be a police investigation. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has no powers to investigate allegations of crime. The war crimes team of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is responsible for the investigation of all allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture. They decide whether an investigation is required and how it should be conducted. SO15 received a request from Rwandan authorities in January 2018 to investigate five individuals in the UK in relation to alleged genocide offences in Rwanda dating from around 1994. SO15 has not launched an investigation as it is currently assessing material provided from Rwandan authorities to determine whether it will be possible to carry out further scoping of the allegations.