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No joint trial of Catholic priest and businessmanBy Hirondelle News Agency Father Athanase Seromba, the first Catholic priest to be tried for genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), will not have his trial joined to that of Gaspard Kanyarukiga, a former businessman in his parish.Both men are accused of taking part in the massacres of Tutsi refugees at Nyange parish (Kibuye, western Rwanda) and Kanyarukiga had demanded a joint trial in the interest of justice.Father Seromba was the priest in charge of the parish. When Seromba=s trial opened September 20, 2004, many witnesses testified how the priest, in the presence of Kanyarukiga, had ordered the demolition of a church using a bulldozer. An estimated two thousand people were alleged_ to be in the church when it came crashing down on them.In his motion, Gaspard Kanyarukiga asserts that if allegations by witnesses are found to be credible, they might be used against him without being given a chance to be heard. The businessman contends that it would be Atantamount to trying him in absentia@.Kanyarukiga, who is also in detention, argues that the same witnesses will be called in both trials, and therefore it would be economical to join them. He is being represented by a duty counsel assigned by the tribunal.In refusing to grant the motion for both accused to be tried together, judge Andresia Vaz from Senegal and two other judges argued that it would result in the inevitable adjournment of Seromba=s trial, which in turn Awould deny the priest the right to a speedy and fair trial@. The prosecution is expected to rest its case in the Seromba trial in January 2005.The tribunal in turn reassured Kanyarukiga that every accused is judged on the basis of evidence brought against him in trial and him alone. AThe trials are conducted before professional judges who evaluate each and very piece of evidence brought before them@, ruled the judges, adding that they were not bound by the assessments of other judges in other trials.
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