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Two Rwandan former soldiers suspected of taking part in the killings of 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers as the 1994 genocide erupted in Rwanda have been found in a Kigali prison, the Belgian daily Le Soir reported on Friday.
Citing information uncovered by Belgian newspapers Derniere Heure and Het Volk, Le Soir reported that
one suspect was an unnamed low-ranking soldier of the ex-FAR, Rwanda's former army, while the other was Cpl Alphonse Twahirwa, who was accused specifically of killing a Belgian lieutenant.
The suspects have already testified before Belgian Judge Damien Van der Meersch, who is due to lead another mission to Rwanda to continue inquiries into the killings.
A third former Rwandan soldier, Maj Bernard Ntuyaga, who is also sought in connection with the killings, is being held in a prison in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Le Soir reported that Ntuyaga told the Belgian soldiers that their lives would be spared if they laid down their arms.
Which legal body will try the three men - the Belgian government, the Rwandan government, or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - has not yet been determined.
The ex-FAR and the Interahamwe Hutu militias are believed to have been largely responsible for the slaughter of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate ethnic Hutus during a three-month-long genocide.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
