10 seconds ago 2009-12-09T12:40:05-08:00
ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) – Former Rwandan government minister Callixte Nzabonimana, described by prosecutors as "the Butcher of Gitarama", went on trial Monday at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania.
Nzabonimana, who served as youth minister in the mainly Hutu government during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, did not appear in court to hear the opening arguments in his trial.
He stands accused of genocide, complicity to commit genocide and direct and public incitement to genocide.
Prosecutor Paul Ng'arua told the UN-backed tribunal that Nzabonimana enjoyed "authority and influence" over local militia and police who killed several people, including children, on his orders, calling him "the Butcher of Gitarama" -- the accused's native region of Rwanda.
A member of the presidential party during the killings, the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), prosecutors say Nzabonimana took part in a plan to eliminate Rwanda's Tutsi minority and opposition Hutus.
Defence lawyer Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse denied his client was involved in the killings and said he was "not a politically powerful man."
Nzabonimana was arrested in western Tanzania in February 2008 and placed in the ICTR's detention centre in the east of the country the following day.
The ICTR, which was formed late in 1994 to try key suspects in the genocide of about 800,000 people, sits in the Tanzanian town of Arusha.
The tribunal has so far convicted nine people on genocide charges.
On November 5, judges sentenced former Rwandan presidential aide Michel Bagaragaza to eight years in jail for complicity to commit genocide.
