A former neighbour<\/span> of a Rwandan accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide testified Tuesday that he never saw the man at any of the ethnic killings in the area where they lived.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Jean-Marie Byiringiro<\/span> took the stand during the third day of testimony in the U.S<\/span>. immigration trial of Lazare<\/span> Kobagaya<\/span>. Byiringiro<\/span>, who admitted killing a 12-year-old Tutsi boy in exchange for a goat as part of the genocide, said he was at nearly all of the ethnic killings in the area where he and Kobagaya<\/span> lived.<\/p>\n Kobagaya<\/span>, 84, is in a federal courtroom in Kansas, USA, fighting charges of unlawfully obtaining U.S<\/span>. citizenship in 2006 with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card. The government, which is seeking to revoke his citizenship, contends he lied to U.S<\/span>. immigration authorities about his involvement in the genocide. Kobagaya<\/span> contends he is innocent.<\/p>\n The arsons and killings related to Kobagaya\u2019s<\/span> case allegedly occurred in a rural community known as Birambo<\/span>, where Kobagaya<\/span> and his family lived at the time, as well as at Mount Nyakizu<\/span>, where thousands of Tutsis<\/span> had sought refuge.<\/p>\n The government contends Kobagaya<\/span> was a wealthy and influential leader who incited the arsons and killings in his community, along with Francois Bazaramba<\/span>, a former Rwandan pastor who was sentenced last year to life imprisonment by a Finnish court for committing genocide against the Tutsi minority in 1994.<\/p>\n Most of Byiringiro\u2019s<\/span> testimony implicated Bazaramba<\/span>, not Kobagaya<\/span>. In fact, Byiringiro<\/span>, who served seven years in prison for his role in the genocide, told jurors that Kobagaya<\/span>, a Hutu<\/span> born in neighboring Burundi, didn\u2019t have any power in the community because he was a refugee in Rwanda.<\/p>\n When a mob gathered at Bazaramba\u2019s<\/span> house before the homes of Tutsis<\/span> were set on fire on April 15, 1994, Byiringiro<\/span> said, Kobagaya<\/span> came out of his house only because people were in front of it. It was Bazaramba<\/span> who spoke to the crowd, Byiringiro<\/span> said. During the speech, Bazaramba<\/span> called on Kobagaya<\/span> to explain to the crowd that the Tutsis<\/span> were bad people.<\/p>\n Byiringiro<\/span> said through a translator that Kobagaya<\/span> did tell people that \u201cwe did not know the badness of the Tutsis\u201d<\/span> and that if they didn\u2019t kill them, the Tutsis<\/span> would kill the Hutus<\/span>. However, Byiringiro<\/span> told the jury he didn\u2019t see Kobagaya<\/span> join the rest of the crowd of more than 100 people in the arsons.<\/p>\n His testimony came a day after another neighbor, Valens<\/span> Murindangabo<\/span>, testified that Kobagaya<\/span> told the mob to burn down the houses of Tutsis<\/span> so they wouldn\u2019t return and ordered the killings of others.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, defense attorney Kurt Kerns<\/span> questioned Murindangabo<\/span>, a former teacher who has served more than 10 years in prison for his role in the genocide, about an eight-page government form he had filled out as part of his own confession. The form asked him to list all witnesses and accomplices, but it didn\u2019t have Kobagaya\u2019s<\/span> name.<\/p>\n Murindangabo<\/span> insisted an attachment had been lost that listed Kobagaya<\/span> as participating in the genocide.<\/p>\n The defense also hammered on the money he was receiving for his testimony \u2014 $96 a day while he is in the United States and $274 when he was in Rwanda for meeting with investigators. The defense team noted that is a lot of money in Rwanda, where the per capita annual income is $490 a year.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former neighbour of a Rwandan accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide testified Tuesday that he never saw the man at any of the ethnic killings in the area where they lived. Jean-Marie Byiringiro took the stand during the third day of testimony in the U.S. immigration trial of Lazare Kobagaya. Byiringiro, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[277],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-com-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}