By Shapi Shacinda

KAMPALA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A tribunal set up to try suspects of Rwanda's 1994 genocide will not meet its 2008 deadline to wrap up and 14 fugitives accused of plotting the slaughter are still in hiding, the court said on Saturday.

Roland Amoussouga, the senior legal adviser of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), said one reason some cases would not be completed before the court's mandate expires was that they were too complicated.

"It's not possible to complete all the cases before the end of December 2008," Amoussouga told journalists on the sidelines of a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kampala, Uganda.

The ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, is prosecuting the architects of the genocide in which Hutu militants killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in one of the worst bouts of bloodletting in Africa's history.

Amoussouga added that 14 fugitives were still hiding in foreign countries that were being uncooperative in efforts to track them down.

He gave the example of Felicien Kabuga, a suspect accused of funding the purchase of machetes used to hack victims to death. Kabuga is believed to be hiding in Kenya.

"The case ... is pending because even though there are reports of where he has been seen, there has been no co-operation to bring him to justice," Amoussouga said.

He declined to name all the countries where suspects were hiding. Lack of finance had also slowed the tribunal, he said.

Amoussouga said the ICTR had made decisions on 37 of the 76 cases with 29 people sentenced, five acquitted and the rest still on trial.

(Writing by Tim Cocks)

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