Rwanda genocide prime suspect taken to court

ARUSHA, Wednesday

Idelphonse Nizeyimana, who earned the title of “Butcher of Butare” during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda today denied charges levelled against him at the UN Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.

The captain of the former Rwandan Army pleaded “not guilty” to five counts of genocide and crimes against humanity during his first appearance in Court, only 10 days after he was arrested in Uganda.

The clean-shaved captain, who was among the elite officers close to the former Rwanda leader Juvenal Habyarimana, sat composed as a barrage of charges were read against him at the packed court room.

A serious stance

Clad in a stripped suit, he did not appear surprised by the charges and maintained a serious stance, often peeping around to find out if he could identify anybody. 

It took almost one hour for the charges to be read against one of the most sought after Rwanda genocide perpetrator with a $5 million cash prize on his head to be read at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The prosecution side alleged that as a military commander in Butare area, when the tiny but densely populated state plunged into orgy of bloodshed in 1994, he ordered the extermination of members of the Tutsi ethnic group and their sympathisers.

Incidentally, large scale killings captain Nizeyimana is alleged to have masterminded started on April 19th, 1994 almost two weeks after the death of President Juvenal Habyarima when his plane was shot down.

Public meetings

Although the death of the president triggered the massacres elsewhere in Rwanda beginning with capital Kigali, the accused is alleged to have organised public meetings in Butare to incite people to take arms against the Tutsis. Nizeyimana reportedly instigated the population to exterminate the Tutsis and opposition leaders by associating the latter with the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), referred as ‘enemy’ by the Habyarimana regime. 

“He ordered soldiers  to take strategic positions around Butare so that it is not infiltrated by the enemy. The enemy referred were the Tutsis”, according to a representative of ICTR registrar. 

He added that through extremist ideology, Nizeyimana and his fellow military officers ordered executions of whole families of people suspected to be Tutsis or their supporters.

Road blocks were set up in many areas to identify the Tutsis, also referred to as ‘inyenzi’ (cockroaches).

And those found with ‘suspicious’ identify cards or seen to be Tutsi were arrested and subsequently killed.