Official on trial for genocide

2008-05-05 21:36

Arusha - A former high-ranking official of Rwanda went on trial here on Monday charged with a key role in the massacre of thousands of refugees during the 1994 genocide in the central African state.

The prosecution at the international war crimes tribunal here said thousands of refugees of the Tutsi ethnic group had approached the defendant, Callixte Kalimanzira, seeking his help, but instead he had encouraged attackers to carry out a massacre.

Kalimanzira, an agronomist who temporarily ran the Rwanda interior ministry as caretaker at the time of the alleged offences, is charged with genocide, with being an accessory to genocide, and with direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Kalimanzira, 55, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Christine Graham, representing the prosecution before the Tanzania-based International Criminal Court for Rwanda (ICTR), described how Kalimanzira had allegedly participated in genocide campaigns in the Butare district.

She said he had played a "key role" in the killing of thousands of Tutsis who had sought refuge on a hill at Kabuye in the south of Rwanda.

Graham said the Kabuye massacres carried out by soldiers, together with militia of the Interahamwe minority and refugees of the Hutu ethnic group from neighbouring Burundi, had lasted several days.

According to the United Nations a total of 800 000 victims, mainly Tutsis and Hutu moderates, died in the mass killing between April and July 1994, planned and carried out by majority Hutu extremists.

- AFP