The trial of the Pentecostal pastor Jean Uwinkindi, the first defendant transferred by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to Rwanda, is scheduled on January, 22, 2014, after a year of delays
Charged with genocide and extermination, the Pentecostal pastor Jean Uwinkindi was handed over to Rwandan authorities in April 2012.
The clergyman, now aged 63, is accused of leading deadly attacks against Tutsis in his parish of Kayanzi (East) during the genocide against Tutsis in 1994.
The trial has been postponed several times during the last year, at the request of the defense claiming not to have the financial resources to meet its potential witnesses in Rwanda and abroad.
According to a monitoring report of Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), the next hearing will take place on January 22 at the High Court in Kigali.
Meanwhile, negotiations are underway between the Rwandan Ministry of Justice and Maitre Gatera Gashabana, senior lawyer of Pastor Uwinkindi
Both parties must agree on a system of payment of fees for the defense. The accused is indeed regarded as an indigent person, unable to afford the services of a lawyer. Since his return to Rwanda, the man of the church is held in the central prison of Kigal (PCK), commonly known as “1930”.
He was joined in July by former militia leader Bernard Munyagishari also transferred from the ICTR. References of certain cases to national courts are part of the ICTR, which is scheduled to close no later than the end of the “completion strategy “. The residual functions of the ICTR will be ensured by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, a smaller institution already in place.
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