Rwanda Genocide Trial Opens in Sweden
September 17, 2015
STOCKHOLM. — A Rwandan-born man charged with genocide and other crimes during the 1994 ethnic massacres in the central African country went on trial in Sweden yesterday.
The trial of Swedish national Claver Berinkindi is the Nordic country’s second case related to the 1994 killings in Rwanda, where an estimated 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed over a 100-day period.
The 60-year-old is accused of participating in and leading attacks on Tutsi civilians in southern Rwanda’s Butare beween April and May that year.
Berinkindi, a Hutu, has denied the charges, including genocide through murder, incitement to murder, attempted murder and abduction.
His defence team said witnesses could have mistaken him for a brother, who was complicit in the events and later killed.
Berinkindi was known for his ties with Hutu extremists and had issued threats against the Tutsi minority, according to prosecutors.
According to the prosecution, he was one of the leaders in attacks on a municipal building in the municipality of Muyira and a nearby school that killed hundreds.
Some of the victims were buried alive, while others were killed with guns, spears, clubs and machetes, the charge sheet read.
The document also mentioned an assault on several thousand people on the Nyamure mountain where Berinkindi was one of the local leaders, as well as killings of families who had sheltered those fleeing the mass violence.
Berinkindi has been in custody for a year. He has been convicted in Rwanda in absentia, but the trial is being held at the Stockholm district court due to his Swedish citizenship.
The legal proceedings are expected to run until March. Some of the hearings are also to be held in Rwanda.
— dpa.
Swedish Citizen Charged With Genocide In Rwanda
By Morgan Winsor @MorganWinsor
IBT on September 04 2015 10:28 AM EDT
A 60-year-old Swedish citizen in Stockholm on Friday was charged with genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The man was not identified, but Swedish prosecutors said he was born in Rwanda and had a lower-level leadership role in the mass slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority. The man was living in central Sweden, and his trial will begin Sept. 16 in the Stockholm District Court.
"Just as during the first Rwanda trial, we are making clear that Sweden will not be a safe haven for those suspected of being war criminals and perpetrators of genocide," Tora Holst, chief prosecutor at the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm, said in a statement Friday.
This is not the first time Sweden has charged a Rwanda genocide suspect. A Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 by a Stockholm court after he was convicted for his role in one of the worst mass killings in the post-World War II era. The man, Stanislas Mbanenande, was an ethnic Hutu and the first person in Sweden to be convicted of the crime, according to CNN.
Many Rwandans who fled their country during and after the 1994 genocide sought asylum in the Nordic country and elsewhere around the world. Among those claiming to be refugees were individuals suspected of having participated in the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes. Some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi, were killed before Rwanda’s Hutu-dominated government fell to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, now led by President Paul Kagame.
Decades later, dozens of perpetrators of the 100-day genocide, including former senior government officials, have been convicted. But thousands were involved in the killings and have not yet been brought to justice, the Guardian reported.
Among those convicted was Jean Kambanda, who was Rwanda’s prime minister at the start of the genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced Kambanda to life imprisonment in 1998 for genocide and crimes against humanity. French prosecutors in 2014 jailed former Rwandan spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa for 25 years for complicity in genocide and in crimes against humanity. Simbikangwa plans to appeal the verdict.
STOCKHOLM. — A Rwandan-born man charged with genocide and other crimes during the 1994 ethnic massacres in the central African country went on trial in Sweden yesterday.
The trial of Swedish national Claver Berinkindi is the Nordic country’s second case related to the 1994 killings in Rwanda, where an estimated 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed over a 100-day period.
The 60-year-old is accused of participating in and leading attacks on Tutsi civilians in southern Rwanda’s Butare beween April and May that year.
Berinkindi, a Hutu, has denied the charges, including genocide through murder, incitement to murder, attempted murder and abduction.
His defence team said witnesses could have mistaken him for a brother, who was complicit in the events and later killed.
Berinkindi was known for his ties with Hutu extremists and had issued threats against the Tutsi minority, according to prosecutors.
According to the prosecution, he was one of the leaders in attacks on a municipal building in the municipality of Muyira and a nearby school that killed hundreds.
Some of the victims were buried alive, while others were killed with guns, spears, clubs and machetes, the charge sheet read.
The document also mentioned an assault on several thousand people on the Nyamure mountain where Berinkindi was one of the local leaders, as well as killings of families who had sheltered those fleeing the mass violence.
Berinkindi has been in custody for a year. He has been convicted in Rwanda in absentia, but the trial is being held at the Stockholm district court due to his Swedish citizenship.
The legal proceedings are expected to run until March. Some of the hearings are also to be held in Rwanda.
— dpa.
Swedish Citizen Charged With Genocide In Rwanda
By Morgan Winsor @MorganWinsor
IBT on September 04 2015 10:28 AM EDT
A 60-year-old Swedish citizen in Stockholm on Friday was charged with genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The man was not identified, but Swedish prosecutors said he was born in Rwanda and had a lower-level leadership role in the mass slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority. The man was living in central Sweden, and his trial will begin Sept. 16 in the Stockholm District Court.
"Just as during the first Rwanda trial, we are making clear that Sweden will not be a safe haven for those suspected of being war criminals and perpetrators of genocide," Tora Holst, chief prosecutor at the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm, said in a statement Friday.
This is not the first time Sweden has charged a Rwanda genocide suspect. A Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 by a Stockholm court after he was convicted for his role in one of the worst mass killings in the post-World War II era. The man, Stanislas Mbanenande, was an ethnic Hutu and the first person in Sweden to be convicted of the crime, according to CNN.
Many Rwandans who fled their country during and after the 1994 genocide sought asylum in the Nordic country and elsewhere around the world. Among those claiming to be refugees were individuals suspected of having participated in the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes. Some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi, were killed before Rwanda’s Hutu-dominated government fell to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, now led by President Paul Kagame.
Decades later, dozens of perpetrators of the 100-day genocide, including former senior government officials, have been convicted. But thousands were involved in the killings and have not yet been brought to justice, the Guardian reported.
Among those convicted was Jean Kambanda, who was Rwanda’s prime minister at the start of the genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced Kambanda to life imprisonment in 1998 for genocide and crimes against humanity. French prosecutors in 2014 jailed former Rwandan spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa for 25 years for complicity in genocide and in crimes against humanity. Simbikangwa plans to appeal the verdict.
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