Nine people, including three British tourists, sustained horrific injuries when they were killed at a Ugandan gorilla reserve in 1999, according to testimony on Tuesday at the trial, in Kampala, of one of the accused.
Jean-Paul Bizimana is one of the Rwandan rebels accused of hacking and bludgeoning to death the nine people, who included a Ugandan guide, at the reserve in western Uganda, near the borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bizimana (30) denies nine counts of murder. He could face execution if convicted. The killings caused a dramatic reduction in tourists to Uganda’s famed Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
The Ugandan rainforest reserve is one of the few places in Africa where visitors can have a close encounter with the endangered mountain gorilla in the wild.
The three British tourists killed were Martin Friend (24), Steven Robert (27) and Mark Lindgren (23). The others were two Americans, two New Zealanders, the driver of the London-based overland tour group and the Ugandan guide. Pathologist Henry Wabinga presented evidence to the Kampala court that five of the tourists sustained broken skulls, hacked brains, stab wounds, compound fractures and burns.
Evidence on the four other victims was not presented because the pathologists who examined them were unavailable. It was the last day of prosecution testimony.
Bizimana is a former member of the Rwandan army, which played a key role in the country’s 1994 genocide. He was first arrested in 1999 in Uganda and was detained until 2001 on suspicion that he was involved in the killing of the Western tourists, his defence lawyer said.
He was then released and deployed with Ugandan troops who were backing rebels operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He worked with the army until Uganda withdrew its soldiers from the DRC in 2003.
Rwandan rebels claimed responsibility for the tourist killings at the time, saying they were targeting English-speakers in order to weaken British and American support for the Rwandan government. In 1999, the United States and Britain were the largest donors to Rwanda’s new government, which was rebuilding after the genocide by Hutu extremists of more than 800 000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Bizimana was seeking asylum in Uganda when he was re-arrested last year. Three other Rwandans were arrested in 2003 and sent to the US to stand trial for the deaths of the two Americans. They were identified as Leon-idas Bimenyiamana (34), Francois Karake (38) and Gregoire Nyaminami (32). — Guardian Unlimited Â