Rights body urges Guinea justice over massacre

CONAKRY (AFP) - Human Rights Watch on Wednesday called on Guinea to step up efforts to bring to justice those responsible for a stadium massacre in 2009 that left almost 160 people dead.

A 2009 HRW investigation suggested that the "killings, rapes and other abuses that security forces committed on and after September 28 (2009) rise to the level of crimes against humanity due to their widespread and systematic nature and evidence that the crimes were premeditated and organised", HRW said in a report Wednesday.

Both the United Nations and the International Criminal Court have also said acts committed that day constituted crimes against humanity.

The massacre occurred when a peaceful rally organised by the opposition in Conakry's biggest stadium was bloodily suppressed by junta troops, leaving 157 dead, hundreds of women victims of sexual violence and over a thousand people injured.

The HRW urged the government on Wednesday to increase support for the investigation to ensure fair, credible prosecutions of the crimes without delay.

"President Alpha Conde and other Guinean officials have said they support accountability, but they need to better translate the rhetoric into action," said HRW senior international justice counsel Elise Keppler in a statement.

"Credible prosecutions would be a major contribution in moving Guinea to an era marked by respect for rule of law."

Three Guinean magistrates were in 2010 tasked with investigating the massacre, and according to the Guinean Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights (OGDH) and other rights groups, six people were charged but have yet to be tried.