Arusha | Wednesday
FORMER Rwandan priest Hormisdas Nsengimana on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to four counts of genocide charges before an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) court in Arusha, the independent Hirondelle press agency reported.
Charges against Nsengimana, a former rector of Christ Roi (Christ the King) College in the Butare region of southern Rwanda, include genocide and crimes against humanity for murder and extermination during a period between April and June 1994 in Rwanda in which up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred, according to official counts.
Dressed in black Roman Catholic priest’s shirt and jacket, with a clerical collar, Nsengimana introduced himself to the ICTR trial Judge, Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia, as ”a Rwandan, currently a refugee.”
He then responded ”not guilty” to all four counts.
Nsengimana is alleged to have played a major role in the massacres of minority Tutsis in Butare region, and that he was one of the leaders of a group known as ”the dragons” or ”Escadron de la mort” (death squad).
Accompanied by soldiers, Nsengimana is alleged to have sought and killed a priest, Father Mathieu Ngirumpatse, around April 25, 1994. at the time, Ngirumpatse was the bursar of Christ the King college.
Nsengimana then allegedly stated: ”Let me kill this Tutsi dog myself, since I am sick and tired of him. Let me kill and let me be proud of it, let me stop when my weapon kills five.”
The court heard that Nsengimana had asked an old woman from Ngirumpatse’s family, seeking refuge at the presbytery, to follow him and ”killed her by sticking his sword in her thorax.”
He is also alleged to have said he would not flee the country ”without seeing the head of another Tutsi priest, Father Justin Furaha” and ordered his employees to search for the man, who was eventually killed at the end of May 1994.
Nsengimana is the fifth cleric detained by the UN tribunal, after Anglican Bishop Samuel Musabyimana, Adventist Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and Catholic priests Emmanuel Rukundo and Athanase Seromba.
He was arrested on March 21 this year in Yaounde, Cameroon, at the request of the tribunal and transferred to Arusha on April 10. – AFP