Some of the convicted accused at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) of genocide can serve their sentences in Rwandan prisons, an ICTR press release said here Friday.

The decision was made public by a joint statement after a discussion between a Rwandan government delegation and the ICTR, seated in Arusha of northern Tanzania.

The ICTR has been given until 2008 a deadline for hearing all the cases related to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by extremist Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, in the space of just 100 days.

The ICTR was established in 1995 to bring to justice the top military and political masterminds behind the massacre.

Source: Xinhua