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Ex-minister pleads not guilty
21/02/2008 10:12 - (SA)
Arusha, Tanzania - A Rwandan former government minister wanted for his alleged role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide pleaded not guilty before an international court trying key suspects here on Wednesday.
Callixte Nzabonimana was arrested at Kigoma in Tanzania and entered his not-guilty plea before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to charges including genocide, incitement to genocide, rape and murder.
Nzabonimana, 55, was youth minister in the mainly Hutu government during the killings of April-July 2004.
A member of the presidential party at the time, the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), Nzabonimana is accused of taking part in a plan to eliminate Rwanda's Tutsi minority and opposition Hutus.
The ICTR, which was formed late in 1994 to try key suspects in the genocide of about 800 000 people, itself sits in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. It has convicted 30 people and acquitted five suspects.
According to the charge sheet, Nzabonimana "personally scoured the hills" around Gitarama in central Rwanda to make sure the "peasants executed the order that had been given them... to kill the Tutsis".
He also allegedly sacked and publicly beat mayors who opposed the mass slaughter.
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