The two years long arguments in the trial of former Rwandan Minister Callixte Nzabonimana will close this Thursday through Friday, according to Arusha based Hirondelle news Agency.
Hirondelle News Agency is based at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania as the only media outlet reporting the Court’s proceedings linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda on a regular basis.
Nzabonimana was Youth Minister in the interim government in place during the 1994 genocide and has been on trial since November 2009.
The defendant is charged with conspiracy to commit Genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, extermination and murder.
The prosecution presents him as the main instigator of massacres of Tutsis in his native prefecture Gitarama today’s Muhanga District in 1994.
Nzabonimana has always denied this, and is pleading not-guilty.
The indictment alleges that before the genocide, Nzabonimana actively participated in recruiting, indoctrinating, training and arming Interahamwe extremist Hutu militia, especially in the Muhanga District.
After the massacres started, he allegedly ordered the erection in the prefecture of various roadblocks which he visited and supervised, distributing arms, money, beer and food to the killers who were manning them.
According to the prosecution, Nzabonimana had influence not only over the civilians who manned the roadblocks but also soldiers, gendarmes and local officials in the prefecture, including the prefect and mayors.
He allegedly abused this influence to call for massacres of Tutsis during numerous public meetings in Muhanga District in 1994.
It is alleged that during a meeting in Murambi on April 18, 1994, attended also by other members of the interim government, Nzabonimana ordered the killing of mayors and other officials who had opposed the massacres.
Immediately afterwards, according to the prosecution, the mayor of Mugina, Callixte Ndagijimana, and other local officials were killed.
The former minister has sought to demonstrate that he did not have the influence in the region that the prosecutor alleges.
He stresses he was a member of the former presidential party MRND whereas after the 1991 advent of multiparty politics in Rwanda, Muhanga the then Gitarama was a stronghold of the main opposition party MDR.
The ex-minister was arrested in Tanzania on February 18, 2008, and his trial started on November 9, 2009.
The court trying him is composed of presiding judge Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Judge Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov of Russia and Judge Mparany Rajohnson of Madagascar.
Leave a Reply