Genocide suspect to face ICTR

2008-10-08 19:06

Arusha - A former Rwandan minister suspected of having played a major role in the 1994 genocide was on Wednesday transferred from Germany to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The court, based in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha, said in a statement that former planning minister Augustin Ngirabatware was taken to a UN detention facility.

The ICTR "expressed its gratitude to the German government for the arrest, detention and smooth transfer of the accused person to Arusha".

Ngirabatware, who was arrested in Germany in September 2007, faces nine counts charging him with genocide, conspiracy and complicity to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and rape.

The former minister, a Switzerland-trained economist, is the son-in-law of Felicien Kabuga, who is the highest-profile fugitive genocide suspect and one of the most wanted men in Africa.

In 2006, Ngirabatware published a book in which he challenged the ICTR's independence.

The genocide, in which extremists from the Hutu majority slaughtered minority Tutis and moderate Hutus, claimed some 800 000 lives in the space of 100 days.

The ICTR, which is based in neighbouring Tanzania, was set up by the UN in the aftermath of the genocide to try the key suspects in the massacres.

- AFP