Court sentences two to death

A court in Rwanda's southwestern Cyangugu Prefecture on Tuesday sentenced two people to death for their involvement in the 1994 genocide, Rwandan News Agency reported on Wednesday. The two were part of a group of 16 accused of hunting down and assacring Tutsis in Kamembe commune, which borders the DRC, tried in the court. Five more of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, four to 20-year jail terms, one to 11 years imprisonment and four were acquitted, RNA said.

Defence opposes motion to hold joint trial of "Butare group"

Defence lawyers for six genocide suspects known as the 'Butare group' on Friday argued strongly against a motion to try their clients' jointly before the International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the independent Hirondelle news agency reported. The six defendants (comprising former Minister for Women's Development and Family Welfare Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, her son and former militia leader Arsene Ntahobali, former mayor of Ngoma Joseph Kanyabashi, former mayor of Muganza Elie Ndayambaje, and two former prefects of Butare, Sylvain Nsabimana and Alphonse Nteziryayo) stand accused of "planning" and "implementing" attacks on Tutsis in the Butare region of southwestern Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.

"All the accused were involved in a common transaction", Hirondelle quoted the Nigerian prosecutor Ibukun Olu Babagide as saying. "The accused have acted jointly and severally in pursuit of a common scheme. It is therefore proper that they should be joined together in a common trial." Defence lawyers argued that there was no case for joinder since this would go against the rights of the accused. "The joinder motion has no legal basis," Hirondelle quoted the Canadian counsel for Nyiramasuhuko, Nicole Bergevin as saying. "The prosecutor has not produced a single element of proof that the accused acted together. There is nothing in the prosecutor's memorandum that shows a link between Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and others, except for her son, with whom she is already jointly charged", Bergevin added.