RWANDA: Genocide suspect surrenders to genocide tribunal

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ARUSHA, 16 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - A former tea factory chief in Rwanda, Michel Bagaragaza, denied on Tuesday before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda three counts of genocide in the 1994 killings in the east African country.

The Rwandan genocide claimed the lives of some 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus between April and July 1994, according to government figures.

Bagaragaza, 60, surrendered voluntarily on Monday to the UN tribunal in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.

The tribunal's chief of prosecutions, Steven Rapp, declined to say where Bagaragaza had been hiding prior to giving himself up.

"Because of the circumstances surrounding his surrender, I can't say for now from where he came," Rapp said.

Bagaragaza is alleged to have exhorted tea factory employees to massacre hundreds of Tutsi civilians who had sought refuge on Kesho Hill, near a tea factory in Rubya, and in Nyundo Cathedral in Gisenyi, northern Rwanda.

The indictment against him said: "On or about 7-9 April 1994, the Interahamwe [Hutu militia] and the presidential guard came to Rubya tea factory. Bagaragaza ordered the employees of the tea factory, over whom he had authority as director general, to provide them with fuel for their vehicles. These Interahamwe and the presidential guard then attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsis on Kesho Hill."

Bagaragaza denied the charges of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and complicity in genocide.

He also allegedly ordered a truckload of Interahamwe to go to Nyundo Cathedral to kill Tutsis who had sought refuge there.

The indictment said: "By facilitating the transport of the Interahamwe, Bagaragaza aided and abetted the killing of the Tutsi that resulted."

Tribunal Prosecutor Hassan Jallow welcomed Bagaragaza's surrender, calling it an "important step" in the fulfillment of the tribunal's completion strategy. The UN has ordered the tribunal to complete its work by 2008. The tribunal, set up in 1994, has so far delivered 25 judgments, including three acquittals.

Jallow said Bagaragaza's indictment was among the final eight indictments that the Office of the Prosecutor has filed in cases alleging genocide. He added that Bagaragaza's indictment resulted from the tribunal's investigation of the Akazu, a group around the former Rwandan president which exercised "great power" in business and government in the years leading to 1994.

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