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Testimony of Genocide 'Mastermind' Comes to an End

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
NEWS
November 17, 2005
Posted to the web November 18, 2005
Arusha
The testimony of the man presented by the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as the "mastermind" of the 1994 genocide,
came to an end Thursday.
Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, 64, is charged with 12 counts of genocide, war
crimes and crimes against humanity.
The former Directeur de cabinet in the Rwandan ministry of defence tried in
vain to make a statement directed to the Rwandan nation but the senior trial
attorney in the case, Barbara Mulvaney (USA), objected energetically and the
colonel's address was cut short.
In his 17 day testimony, Bagosora dismissed allegations that he attempted to
take over power in the hours following the death of Rwandan president Juvenal
Habyarimana on the night of April 6, 1994.
The accused, who chaired a meeting of the Rwandan armed forces immediately
after the assassination, however admitted having refused to put the forces
under the command of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.
"I was totally convinced that she was behind the death of the president", he
said.
Uwilingiyimana was killed on the morning of April 7 1994.
Colonel Bagosora shifted responsibility of the prime minister's death on the
former commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR),
General Romeo Dallaire.
He said that if Dallaire had not attempted to drive the Prime Minister to the
national radio station to address the nation before first informing the army
leadership, she would not have been killed.
He also accused the Canadian general of bearing the major responsibility in the
murder of 12 Belgian peacekeepers who had been assigned to escort
Uwilingiyimana to the radio station.
Bagosora ended his testimony the same way he had begun on October 24 - by
criticising the ICTR for failing to investigate the shooting down of president
Habyarimana's plane and accusing it of partiality.
"The ICTR has only brought to trial the defeated Hutus, the RPF (Rwandese
Patriotic Front, former Tutsi rebels now in power in Kigali) is left alone", he
complained.
Bagosora is jointly tried with three other senior officers of the Rwandan army;
Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, former head of military operations of the Rwanda
army, the former commander of Gisenyi military region (North-West), Lieutenant-
Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva, and Major Aloys Ntabakuze, former commander of the
elite Para-commando battalion.

   

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