The Rwandan government has long criticized the international court here for its plodding manner in trying suspects from the wave of ethnic killings in 1994.

The results may help prosecutors try other suspects, but could provide grounds for four men convicted this week to appeal.

Gonzales also helped draft the Presidential Order which authorized the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects.

Specifically the US criticised the use of local courts to try suspects accused of perpetrating violence.

Also great, he believed, was the cost of trying suspects in military hearings that much of the world considered illegitimate.

The Court was established by Parliament in 1974 to combat rising gun violence, and empowered to try suspects in camera, without a jury.

The tribunals, whose members have not yet been appointed, are empowered to try non-American suspects.

The United States cannot try suspects on war-crimes charges but seeks to establish that they entered the country under false pretenses.

He said the Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention in Somalia made no provisions for trying suspects charged with war crimes.

Mr. Graham advocates using the existing court-martial system as the basis for trying suspects, a position that has drawn fire from many other Republicans.