AP/WNJ
20 May 2011
The name of a Kansas man accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide was on a list of people whom Rwandan prosecutors and a government survivors' organization wanted prisoners to accuse as a condition of their release, a former inmate testified Thursday.
The ex-inmate took the stand for the defense Thursday in the federal trial of Mr. Lazare Kobagaya, 84, who faces deportation if convicted of lying to U.S. immigration officials in a case prosecutors have said is the first in the nation requiring proof of genocide. The Topeka man is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 and with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card.
Jean de Dieu Maniraho told jurors the inclusion of Kobagaya on the list of those people to be accused caused "a lot of trouble" at the prison in 2005, triggering fights and arguments that divided prisoners from Nyakizu Commune into two groups.
"Some were saying this is an old man. We don't need to accuse him of something he did not commit," Maniraho told jurors through an interpreter. "And the other group ... said we have to do what the government wants us to do and what IBUKA wants us to do," a reference to a Rwandan Tutsi survivors association.
Among those in the latter group, Maniraho testified, was a key prosecution witness in the trial, Valens Murindangabo, a former teacher. Murindangabo had testified earlier in the trial that Kobagaya ordered the killing of Tutsis and the burning of their houses in Nyakizu Commune, where he lived at the time.
Maniraho told jurors on Thursday that IBUKA members would come to transitional camps where prisoners who had confessed to genocide would be held for 30 days before they were allowed to go home. One of the things the inmates would be taught would be to accuse "people of means" of genocide, he said.
"People of IBUKA wanted them to be arrested and put in prison so they can show proof to the whole world that genocide was done and that it was done by people who are educated," he said.
At the time, Maniraho said he was president of a type of community court system known as a gacaca that was held within the prison walls. He spent a total of 10 years in prison.
Under cross-examination questioning, prosecutor Steven Parker got Maniraho to acknowledge that he and Murindangabo had gone to one of those transitional camps after confessing to their crimes, but both men were still sent back to prison to serve two more years despite their confessions.
Maniraho also testified that he had to flee Rwanda after he was identified as a defense witness for Kobagaya's trial because Rwandan police were telling people that he was wanted and were asking for anyone who had seen him to hand him over to Rwandan prosecutors.
Any further testimony on that, however, was cut off because U.S. District Judge Monti Belot had ruled earlier in the day that the defense could not present any evidence related to the current political situation in Rwanda.
"This is a pure and simple, straightforward case: whether the jury believes the government's witnesses from Rwanda or the defense witnesses from Rwanda — who were there at the time," Belot told lawyers outside the jury's presence. "Either Mr. Kobagaya did what he is alleged to have done or Mr. Kobagaya didn't do what he is alleged — at the time."
The defense had argued in a court filing last month that the testimony being offered by government witnesses is being done at the behest of the Rwandan government through an unfair court system and the use of re-education camps to "brainwash individuals into regurgitating the official government position" for the sake of the current power maintaining its rule.
On Thursday, Belot barred a defense expert who would have testified about the "re-education" camps.
The events at issue in Kobagaya's trial allegedly occurred in the Rwandan village of Birambo, where Kobagaya lived at the time, and at Mount Nyakizu where hundreds of Tutsis were massacred.
Earlier in the day, the defense called to the stand Francois Patrick Tuyisabe, who was an 18-year-old student home on vacation at the time of the genocide. Tuyisabe said he did not participate in those events because his father told him not to do so.
Tuyisabe told jurors that during attacks on Tutsis who had fled to Mount Nyakizu that no Hutu children or elderly people were allowed to participate for fear they could be killed in a fight.
Tuyisabe — who testified he too stayed behind in Birambo during the attacks at Mount Nyakizu — was asked whether he saw Kobagaya in Birambo during the Mount Nyakizu attacks.
He replied, "I saw the old man at his home."
20 May, 2011
British Police Warn 2 Rwandans in Britain of Rwandan Government Threats on their Lives.
New York Times
19 May 2011
By Josh Kron and Jeffery Gettleman
The British police have warned two outspoken Rwandan dissidents living in London that their lives are in danger because the Rwandan government may be plotting to kill them, according to British officials and documents.
In hand-delivered letters dated May 12, the Metropolitan Police Service warned the dissidents that the threat on their lives “could come in any form” and that “unconventional means” had been used before.
“Reliable intelligence states that the Rwandan government poses an imminent threat to your life,” the warning letters read. They added, “Although the Metropolitan Police Service will take what steps it can to minimize the risk, the police cannot protect you from this threat on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis.”
British officials confirmed the documents’ authenticity on Thursday.
Human rights groups have increasingly criticized the Rwandan government as being repressive and intolerant of any dissent, and several Rwandan dissidents living abroad have been mysteriously killed.
Last year, a former Rwandan general who had broken with the government was shot in South Africa, and assailants later tried to kill him while he was recovering in the hospital. Western diplomats contended that was evidence of a government plot to kill him.
The Rwandan government has rejected such accusations, including any threats in London.
“The government of Rwanda does not threaten the lives of its citizens wherever they live,” it said in a statement. “The Metropolitan Police have not approached us with evidence of allegations, but we are ready, as always, to work with them to ensure that nobody, be they Rwandan or not, is the victim of violence on British soil.”
The form letters, signed by a member of the Metropolitan Police Service, did not vouch for the accuracy of the threat but said it came from a source whose account the police had “no reason to disbelieve.”
One of the recipients of the warning, Rene Claudel Mugenzi, has been actively working with Rwandan opposition groups in London and said he was contacted by the British police late on May 12. “They said it was important,” Mr. Mugenzi said, “that I should not leave home.”
Mr. Mugenzi, 35, said he was aware that the Rwandan government did not appreciate his political views. But when two police officers showed up at his door in east London around 10:30 p.m. and told him and his wife of a threat to his life, he said he was speechless.
“I did not think they could think to kill me here in the U.K.,” he said.
Mr. Mugenzi says that in March he asked a pointed question to Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, during a BBC call-in show about whether Mr. Kagame believed an Egypt-style revolution could happen in Rwanda.
He also helped organize a recent meeting of exiled Rwandans in London. The Rwandan government has accused many opposition officials of working with a rebel group in eastern Congo that has been classified as a terrorist group by the United States and linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Mr. Mugenzi, who says he holds British as well as Rwandan citizenship, also works as a director at the London Center for Social Impact. He ran with the Liberal Democrats in local London elections last year and lost.
He has been living in Britain since 1997 and has frequently criticized Rwanda’s government for rights abuses.
“Take such remedial action as you see fit to increase your own safety measures, e.g. house burglar alarms, change of daily routines, always walk with an associate,” said the warning letter. “It may even be that you decide that it is more appropriate for you to leave the area for the foreseeable future.”
He said he had no plans to leave, but he was not ruling it out.
The other recipient of the warning, Jonathan Musonera, said he was a former Rwandan Army captain who fled to Britain in 2001 after defecting while the army was fighting in Congo. He said he was subsequently tortured by the Rwandan government. Now a critic of the government, he said the British police visited his home about an hour before the visit to Mr. Mugenzi.
“They told me about the Rwandan government,” Mr. Musonera said, “that they put my life in danger and they were trying to kill me.”
Critics of the Rwandan government have been killed or have simply vanished. Seth Sendashonga, a former member of the governing party, was fatally shot in Kenya in 1998. Augustin Cyiza, a former vice president of Rwanda’s Supreme Court, disappeared and is believed to have been killed in 2003. Leonard Hitimana, an opposition politician, disappeared the same year.
A Rwandan journalist covering the apparent assassination attempt of the general in South Africa was shot dead the day his story was published. The shooting strained relations between South Africa and Rwanda, with South Africa recalling its ambassador in August.
Last month, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported that Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, had warned Rwanda’s high commissioner in London that a harassment campaign against Rwandan dissidents must be stopped or more than $100 million in foreign aid to Rwanda could be cut.
The Rwandan government has repeatedly denied that it represses its citizens or has had a hand in any of the attacks on high-profile dissidents.
19 May 2011
By Josh Kron and Jeffery Gettleman
The British police have warned two outspoken Rwandan dissidents living in London that their lives are in danger because the Rwandan government may be plotting to kill them, according to British officials and documents.
In hand-delivered letters dated May 12, the Metropolitan Police Service warned the dissidents that the threat on their lives “could come in any form” and that “unconventional means” had been used before.
“Reliable intelligence states that the Rwandan government poses an imminent threat to your life,” the warning letters read. They added, “Although the Metropolitan Police Service will take what steps it can to minimize the risk, the police cannot protect you from this threat on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis.”
British officials confirmed the documents’ authenticity on Thursday.
Human rights groups have increasingly criticized the Rwandan government as being repressive and intolerant of any dissent, and several Rwandan dissidents living abroad have been mysteriously killed.
Last year, a former Rwandan general who had broken with the government was shot in South Africa, and assailants later tried to kill him while he was recovering in the hospital. Western diplomats contended that was evidence of a government plot to kill him.
The Rwandan government has rejected such accusations, including any threats in London.
“The government of Rwanda does not threaten the lives of its citizens wherever they live,” it said in a statement. “The Metropolitan Police have not approached us with evidence of allegations, but we are ready, as always, to work with them to ensure that nobody, be they Rwandan or not, is the victim of violence on British soil.”
The form letters, signed by a member of the Metropolitan Police Service, did not vouch for the accuracy of the threat but said it came from a source whose account the police had “no reason to disbelieve.”
One of the recipients of the warning, Rene Claudel Mugenzi, has been actively working with Rwandan opposition groups in London and said he was contacted by the British police late on May 12. “They said it was important,” Mr. Mugenzi said, “that I should not leave home.”
Mr. Mugenzi, 35, said he was aware that the Rwandan government did not appreciate his political views. But when two police officers showed up at his door in east London around 10:30 p.m. and told him and his wife of a threat to his life, he said he was speechless.
“I did not think they could think to kill me here in the U.K.,” he said.
Mr. Mugenzi says that in March he asked a pointed question to Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, during a BBC call-in show about whether Mr. Kagame believed an Egypt-style revolution could happen in Rwanda.
He also helped organize a recent meeting of exiled Rwandans in London. The Rwandan government has accused many opposition officials of working with a rebel group in eastern Congo that has been classified as a terrorist group by the United States and linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Mr. Mugenzi, who says he holds British as well as Rwandan citizenship, also works as a director at the London Center for Social Impact. He ran with the Liberal Democrats in local London elections last year and lost.
He has been living in Britain since 1997 and has frequently criticized Rwanda’s government for rights abuses.
“Take such remedial action as you see fit to increase your own safety measures, e.g. house burglar alarms, change of daily routines, always walk with an associate,” said the warning letter. “It may even be that you decide that it is more appropriate for you to leave the area for the foreseeable future.”
He said he had no plans to leave, but he was not ruling it out.
The other recipient of the warning, Jonathan Musonera, said he was a former Rwandan Army captain who fled to Britain in 2001 after defecting while the army was fighting in Congo. He said he was subsequently tortured by the Rwandan government. Now a critic of the government, he said the British police visited his home about an hour before the visit to Mr. Mugenzi.
“They told me about the Rwandan government,” Mr. Musonera said, “that they put my life in danger and they were trying to kill me.”
Critics of the Rwandan government have been killed or have simply vanished. Seth Sendashonga, a former member of the governing party, was fatally shot in Kenya in 1998. Augustin Cyiza, a former vice president of Rwanda’s Supreme Court, disappeared and is believed to have been killed in 2003. Leonard Hitimana, an opposition politician, disappeared the same year.
A Rwandan journalist covering the apparent assassination attempt of the general in South Africa was shot dead the day his story was published. The shooting strained relations between South Africa and Rwanda, with South Africa recalling its ambassador in August.
Last month, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported that Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, had warned Rwanda’s high commissioner in London that a harassment campaign against Rwandan dissidents must be stopped or more than $100 million in foreign aid to Rwanda could be cut.
The Rwandan government has repeatedly denied that it represses its citizens or has had a hand in any of the attacks on high-profile dissidents.
17 May, 2011
ICTR's Military-II Trial Verdicts Given.
ICTR
Press Release
17 May 2011
Trial Chamber II of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda today convicted Augustin Bizimungu, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, Innocent Sagahutu and Augustin Ndindiliyimana in the ‘Military II’ trial. It subsequently sentenced Bizimungu to 30 years in prison and Nzuwonemeye and Sagahutu each to 20 years imprisonment while Ndindiliyimana was sentenced to time served since he was arrested in Belgium on 29 January 2000.
Following this the Chamber ordered Ndindiliyamana’s immediate release and requested the Registry to make the necessary arrangements.
In reaching its judgement, the Trial Chamber, composed of Judges Asoka de Silva, Presiding, Taghrid Hikmet and Seon ki Park, stated that it had limited its analysis to considering whether the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt whether any of the accused were criminally responsible for the crimes that are alleged in the Indictment.
All the accused were acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide. The Trial Chamber ruled that it was not satisfied that the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the four accused in the case were implicated in such a conspiracy.
Ndindiliyimana was Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie Nationale while Bizimungu was Chief of Staff of Rwanda Armed Forces, Nzuwonemeye was Commander of the Reconnaissance Battalion (RECCE) within the Rwandan Army and Sagahutu was the second-in-command of the RECCE and the “A” company commander of the Battalion.
The Trial Chamber convicted Ndindiliyimana on four counts of genocide, crimes against humanity (murder and extermination) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II ( murder). It acquitted him on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide and dismissed the count of complicity in genocide.
However it noted that the mitigating factors, which warranted mention, and the lesser sentence handed down to him, included his limited command over the Gendarmerie after 6 April 1994, his consistent support for the Arusha (peace) Accords and a peaceful solution of the conflict between the Rwandan Government forces and Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and his opposition to the massacres in Rwanda.
The Trial Chamber found Bizimungu guilty on six counts of genocide, crimes against humanity for murder, extermination and rape and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II ( murder; rape, humiliating treatment). He was however acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide while the count of complicity to commit genocide was dismissed.
Nzuwonemeye was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (murder). He was however acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).
Sagahutu was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II (murder), and acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).
Further, Nzowunemeye and Sagahutu were also found to have ordered the killing of Prime Minister Agathe Uwingiliyimana and also were criminally responsible as superiors for the killing of the Belgian UNAMIR soldiers.
Bizimungu was arrested on 2 August 2002 in Angola and on 14 August 2002 he was transferred to the UN Detention Facility (UNDF) in Arusha, while Ndindiliyimana was arrested on 29 January 2000 in Belgium and transferred to the UNDF on 22 April 2000. Nzuwonemeye was arrested in the town of Montauban in the south of France on 15 February 2000 and was transferred to the UNDF on 23 May 2000 while Sagahutu was arrested in Denmark on 15 February 2000. He was transferred to the UNDF on 24 November 2000.
The trial opened on 20 September 2004 and closed on 26 June 2009 after 395 trial days. The Prosecution presented a total of 72 witnesses, while the defence produced a total of 134 witnesses.
Bizimungu is represented by Gilles Saint Laurent and Ronnie MacDonald (Canada); Ndindiliyimana is represented by Christopher Black (Canada) and Vincent Lurquin (Belgium); Nzuwonemeye is represented by Acheleke Charles Taku (Cameroon) and Beth Lyons (USA); and Sagahutu is represented by Fabien Segatwa (Burundi) and Seydou Doumbia (Mali).
Press Release
17 May 2011
Trial Chamber II of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda today convicted Augustin Bizimungu, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, Innocent Sagahutu and Augustin Ndindiliyimana in the ‘Military II’ trial. It subsequently sentenced Bizimungu to 30 years in prison and Nzuwonemeye and Sagahutu each to 20 years imprisonment while Ndindiliyimana was sentenced to time served since he was arrested in Belgium on 29 January 2000.
Following this the Chamber ordered Ndindiliyamana’s immediate release and requested the Registry to make the necessary arrangements.
In reaching its judgement, the Trial Chamber, composed of Judges Asoka de Silva, Presiding, Taghrid Hikmet and Seon ki Park, stated that it had limited its analysis to considering whether the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt whether any of the accused were criminally responsible for the crimes that are alleged in the Indictment.
All the accused were acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide. The Trial Chamber ruled that it was not satisfied that the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the four accused in the case were implicated in such a conspiracy.
Ndindiliyimana was Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie Nationale while Bizimungu was Chief of Staff of Rwanda Armed Forces, Nzuwonemeye was Commander of the Reconnaissance Battalion (RECCE) within the Rwandan Army and Sagahutu was the second-in-command of the RECCE and the “A” company commander of the Battalion.
The Trial Chamber convicted Ndindiliyimana on four counts of genocide, crimes against humanity (murder and extermination) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II ( murder). It acquitted him on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide and dismissed the count of complicity in genocide.
However it noted that the mitigating factors, which warranted mention, and the lesser sentence handed down to him, included his limited command over the Gendarmerie after 6 April 1994, his consistent support for the Arusha (peace) Accords and a peaceful solution of the conflict between the Rwandan Government forces and Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and his opposition to the massacres in Rwanda.
The Trial Chamber found Bizimungu guilty on six counts of genocide, crimes against humanity for murder, extermination and rape and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II ( murder; rape, humiliating treatment). He was however acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide while the count of complicity to commit genocide was dismissed.
Nzuwonemeye was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (murder). He was however acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).
Sagahutu was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II (murder), and acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).
Further, Nzowunemeye and Sagahutu were also found to have ordered the killing of Prime Minister Agathe Uwingiliyimana and also were criminally responsible as superiors for the killing of the Belgian UNAMIR soldiers.
Bizimungu was arrested on 2 August 2002 in Angola and on 14 August 2002 he was transferred to the UN Detention Facility (UNDF) in Arusha, while Ndindiliyimana was arrested on 29 January 2000 in Belgium and transferred to the UNDF on 22 April 2000. Nzuwonemeye was arrested in the town of Montauban in the south of France on 15 February 2000 and was transferred to the UNDF on 23 May 2000 while Sagahutu was arrested in Denmark on 15 February 2000. He was transferred to the UNDF on 24 November 2000.
The trial opened on 20 September 2004 and closed on 26 June 2009 after 395 trial days. The Prosecution presented a total of 72 witnesses, while the defence produced a total of 134 witnesses.
Bizimungu is represented by Gilles Saint Laurent and Ronnie MacDonald (Canada); Ndindiliyimana is represented by Christopher Black (Canada) and Vincent Lurquin (Belgium); Nzuwonemeye is represented by Acheleke Charles Taku (Cameroon) and Beth Lyons (USA); and Sagahutu is represented by Fabien Segatwa (Burundi) and Seydou Doumbia (Mali).
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