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VI.       Limited investigative capability of the Prosecutor's Office

The Prosecutor’s Office is not prepared to investigate the serious crimes that have cast a shadow over Ituri since the conflict in this region began in 1998, nor does it have the personnel to deal with more minor crimes.  Four investigative judges are not sufficient to inquire into all the cases that have been accumulating during the years of judicial collapse in Bunia.  Until the beginning of May 2004, 300 cases were under investigation at the Prosecutor’s Office, 45 had been referred for trial, and 30 judgments had been handed down.⁴¹  These figures mean that each of the four investigative judges in the Prosecutor’s Office currently has an average of 75 cases to investigate.  Under these conditions, and in the absence of police expertise and adequate equipment, either the investigative judges need an excessively long time to complete their investigation of each case or the investigations have to be rushed.

Three things must be accomplished quickly.  First, it is imperative to increase the number of staff for investigative judges and judges if they are expected to carry out serious investigative work.  There are insufficient personnel in the judicial police and the Prosecutor's Office to handle the high level of crime in Ituri, including for more minor crimes.  Second, the Prosecutor’s Office must be provided with a judicial police force consisting of armed police officers and inspectors experienced in criminal investigations.  The government, which is responsible for this, has not provided Bunia with any police force to date.  At the beginning of April, Emmanuel Leku, one of the leaders of the interim administration of Ituri, complained that “not one police officer or soldier had been sent by Kinshasa.”⁴²  This vacuum forces the Prosecutor’s Office to rely on the forces of MONUC to execute its warrants.  However, MONUC, which cannot take over the functions of the national judicial police, only cooperates with the Prosecutor’s Office in cases which correspond to its own security policy.

In addition to the bureaucratic procedures of MONUC that slow investigations down, the support of MONUC forces in executing the warrants of the Prosecutor’s Office creates dependence, or a perception of dependence, on MONUC by the Prosecutor’s Office.  Such dependence is reinforced by the absence of a clear government policy on crimes committed in Ituri.  It is up to the government to remedy this inconsistency by giving the judicial system in Bunia its own police force.  Cutting the cord of dependence between the Prosecutor’s Office and MONUC is necessary so that the judicial system in Bunia ceases to function as a body legitimizing the various arrest measures of MONUC.  The investigative judges should also make a personal effort to distance themselves from MONUC.  It is very worrying to learn that the investigative judges have been reduced to seeking the opinion of MONUC on applications for provisional release submitted by prisoners.

Finally, the investigative judges must be given appropriate expertise to enable them to investigate complex crimes of the type that have been committed in Ituri, often characterized by the involvement of multiple perpetrators and multiple victims, and requiring an investigation backed by forensic expertise.  In this regard, it is necessary to urgently create a team of investigators for Ituri that would work in cooperation with the Prosecutor's Office in Bunia.  Such a team of investigators would consist of investigative judges, experienced police investigators, and forensic experts.  They would form a mobile team that could be deployed anywhere in Ituri, depending on the situation and the sites where the crimes took place.  This team would support the Prosecutor’s Office both to clear the backlog and give it more useful training on investigative methods.