A 68-year-old Rwandan appears from Wednesday before a Dutch court, suspected of having incited and participated in the massacre of 3,000 Tutsis during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The prosecution accuses this man, whose identity has not been disclosed, of having been "personally involved in the murder of Tutsis", around 800,000 of whom were murdered in the space of three months.
He is accused of having perpetrated looting and mass destruction against Tutsis in Mbazi, in southern Rwanda.
“During these acts of violence, the houses of Tutsis were burned and destroyed, and their property looted,” declared the prosecution.
Shortly after, around 3,000 Tutsis who had fled to a stadium in Mbazi were killed.
The suspect is charged with incitement and complicity in genocide, as well as war crimes for the looting.
- International arrest warrant -
More than 800,000 people according to the UN, mainly members of the Tutsi minority, were killed in the spring of 1994 in massacres orchestrated by Hutu extremists after the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana in an attack on his plane.
According to the Dutch authorities, the suspect has been wanted for a long time by the Rwandan prosecutor's office, which issued an international arrest warrant against him in 2014.
However, this man has acquired Dutch nationality and cannot be extradited to Rwanda. He has lived in the Netherlands since 1998.
Dutch investigators have been looking into his case since 2020 and have interviewed dozens of witnesses, including in Rwanda.
The trial at The Hague District Court is expected to last until June 29, with the verdict expected on August 28.
Courts in European countries have tried and convicted several dozen people involved in the genocide in Rwanda under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows them to judge the most serious crimes, even if they were committed abroad.
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