{"id":21337,"date":"2015-11-23T07:11:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T07:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rwanda-investigates-death-of-9-spaniards-killed\/"},"modified":"2015-11-23T23:07:44","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T23:07:44","slug":"rwanda-investigates-death-of-9-spaniards-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rwanda-investigates-death-of-9-spaniards-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda investigates death of 9 Spaniards killed 20 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Rwanda is investigating the death of nine Spaniards killed in the country and DR Congo in the 1990s.}<\/p>\n

Prosecutor-General Richard Muhumuza told the [Spanish] Criminal Division of the National Court and the Central Court of Instruction No. 4, in charge of investigating the case and in the process of executing the judgement issued by the Supreme Court on September 24, to lift the arrest warrants against the 40 Rwandan military officers prosecuted for crimes of terrorism, torture, and genocide, acts in which the Spaniards were killed.<\/p>\n

Two priests, four members of the Marist Brothers and three aid workers were killed in Rwanda and Congo between 1994 and 1997.<\/p>\n

This was acknowledged by the Criminal Division of the National Court in a decision of January 28.<\/p>\n

Twenty years after these killings, the investigation is still open in Rwanda \u2013 only one person is in prison for the death of one of the priests \u2013 while in Spain, the Supreme Court decided to provisionally dismiss the sentence against the 40 military defendants, because they are neither Spanish nor present in Spain.<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s Criminal Investigation Department has opened investigations into each of the killings, Muhumuza informed the High Court last May. To-date, only one person has been convicted\u2013by the Primary Court of Gitarama\u2013which sentenced Isidro Uzcudun to 20 years in prison for the murder of a priest.<\/p>\n

The suspects in the deaths of the other eight Spaniards are still at large. According to the document submitted by Rwanda to Spain, Catalan priest Joaqu\u00edn Valmaj\u00f3 i Sala was kidnapped on April 26, 1994, in Byumba \u201cby unknown armed men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe priest drove his own car, accompanied by an armed soldier,\u201d Muhumuza told Fernando Andreu, the Spanish magistrate in the case. \u201cSince that day, Father Valmaj\u00f3 has not been seen again.\u201d
\nInterrogations<\/p>\n

Nine witnesses were questioned by Rwandan authorities in connection with the disappearance of the priest, but their statements have not clarified whether the kidnappers were then government soldiers, Rwandan Patriotic Army, or other armed people.<\/p>\n

A witness testified that the area where the priest disappeared was controlled by ex-government soldiers and other armed groups.<\/p>\n

As for four Marists, the Rwandan investigation located the place of death in Bugobe near the Nyamitangwe refugee camp in DR Congo. Their bodies were found on November 9, 1996, in a 12-metre closed well.<\/p>\n

The investigations revealed that there were witnesses who saw a vehicle owned by the congregation with objects stolen from this community. A witness identified a member of the Interahamwe militia.<\/p>\n

The three aid workers, Manuel Madrazo, Flors Sirera and Luis Valtue\u00f1a, died on January 18, 1997, in Ruhengeri.<\/p>\n

Police took statements from 13 witnesses who agreed that 20 armed men dressed in coats attacked the house where the Spaniards lived. One of the witnesses said various houses belonging to expatriates were also attacked the same day, which he described as \u201cthe goal\u201d of the attackers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese cases are still under Police investigation and remain open,\u201d said the Rwandan prosecutor to Spanish authorities, with whom he offered to \u201cwork together\u201d in the investigations.<\/p>\n

Spanish judicial sources confirmed to El Mundo newspaper about the ongoing investigations of these murders.<\/p>\n

In expectation of Spanish prosecutor\u2019s ruling on the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to lift the arrest warrants of 40 officers, and Fernando Andreu\u2019s execution of the judgment of the \u200bHigh Court, sources familiar with the investigation said prosecution cancelled the warrants.<\/p>\n

\"Prosecutor-General<\/figure>\n

The New Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Rwanda is investigating the death of nine Spaniards killed in the country and DR Congo in the 1990s.} Prosecutor-General Richard Muhumuza told the [Spanish] Criminal Division of the National Court and the Central Court of Instruction No. 4, in charge of investigating the case and in the process of executing the judgement issued by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[69],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homehighlights","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070327,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21337.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21337","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21337"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21337"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}