The first Rwandan witness at the trial of a Rwandan genocide suspect told a German court Wednesday how he was arbitrarily imprisoned and threatened in the run up to the mass killing of ethnic Tutsis<\/span> by Hutus<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The trial of Onesphore<\/span> Rwabukombe<\/span>, former Hutu<\/span> mayor of Mavumba<\/span> in north-eastern Rwanda, began in Frankfurt in January. German law authorizes the punishment of acts of genocide anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n The witness, a 47-year-old Rwandan public prosecutor, said violence erupted in Rwanda and he was arrested on October 9, 1990, although he had committed no crime. Rwabukombe<\/span> drove the truck on which prisoners were packed, and he was detained for several months.<\/p>\n At one point during his detention, the witness told the court, Rwabukombe<\/span> took a rifle from a soldier, loaded the breech and aimed it at him.<\/p>\n \u2019The only reason he did not shoot me was that a friend went and stood between us,\u2019 the witness said.<\/p>\n He told the court that he had left Rwanda after his release from detention in March 1991 and had not been present during the genocide of Tutsis<\/span> and moderate Hutus<\/span> in 1994.<\/p>\n \u2019I didn\u2019t feel safe any more,\u2019 he told the court.<\/p>\n Rwabukombe<\/span>, 53, was arrested last year in Germany, where he has lived since 2002 and has been seeking political asylum.<\/p>\n Rwabukombe<\/span> is accused of having given orders that led to the death of 3,730 people, mainly Tutsis<\/span> who had taken refuge in a church.<\/p>\n The witness was the first of 17 witnesses from Rwanda who have been called to testify in Frankfurt. Prosecutors said that though this witness did not witness the genocide at the heart of the case, he was called so that judges would grasp Rwabukombe\u2019s<\/span> character.<\/p>\n A second witness, Cosolee<\/span> Nyiramongi<\/span>, 65, whose husband was killed in the bloodletting, was in Frankfurt Wednesday and was scheduled to testify next.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first Rwandan witness at the trial of a Rwandan genocide suspect told a German court Wednesday how he was arbitrarily imprisoned and threatened in the run up to the mass killing of ethnic Tutsis by Hutus. The trial of Onesphore Rwabukombe, former Hutu mayor of Mavumba in north-eastern Rwanda, began in Frankfurt in January. […]<\/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-174","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\/174","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=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}