| Rwamakuba's trial comes to an end
By Hirondelle News Agency
The trial of the former minister of primary and secondary education,
Andre Rwamakuba, came to an end last Thursday at the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). 55-year old Rwamakuba is a medical
doctor by profession and he was a member of the interim government in
Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He pleaded not guilty to genocide,
complicity in genocide, and two charges of crimes against humanity
(extermination and murder). The prosecution alleges that the crimes were
committed at the University Hospital in Butare (southern Rwanda) and at
Rwamakuba's hometown of Gikomero, a short distance from Kigali. The
former Minister has boycotted his trial ever since it reopened in 2005
claiming that his dossier was being manipulated by the prosecutor. His
lawyers called about 30 witnesses in his defence while the prosecution
called 18. According to the indictment, the former Hutu dignitary
supervised and personally took part in the massacres of Tutsis at the
University hospital where Rwamakuba "caused the death of an unknown
Tutsi patient by wounding him in the head with an axe". It continues
that the accused incited the population to massacres of Tutsis and that
he distributed weapons to killers with the intention "to destroy, in
whole or in part, the Tutsi as a group". Rwamakuba was a member of the
opposition Mouvement democratique republicain (MDR). He had until May
2004, been jointly tried with three former leaders of the former ruling
party, the MRND. In February last year, the tribunal ruled that
Rwamakuba's trial be separated from that of the former president of the
MRND, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, his vice president Edouard Karemera and the
Secretary General of the party, Joseph Nzirorera. The joint trial had
opened in November 2003 but had to restart from scratch because the
judge's impartiality had been questioned. Andre Rwamakuba is represented
by David Hooper (UK) and Andreas O'Shea (South Africa). The prosecution
was led by Dior Fall (Senegal).
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