Former army lieutenant pleads not guilty to genocide

Former Rwandan army Lieutenant Ildephonse Hategekimana, who was arrested in the Republic of Congo capital, pleaded not guilty to five counts of genocide, incitement to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity (rape and other inhuman acts) when he appeared on Friday before a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In a statement issued on Friday the tribunal said that Hategekimana, who was commander of the Ngoma camp in Butare Province, southern Rwanda, denied the charges before Judge Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia.

The tribunal said that in his position as camp commander, Hategekimana allegedly ordered, transported, and led soldiers and militiamen to attack Tutsi civilians, "including street-by-street killings in the Muslim quarters of Ngoma, and attacks at a convent and at the Groupe Scolaire where orphans were gathered".

Hategekimana also watched an attack at a dispensary while preventing his soldiers from intervening to stop it, the tribunal reported.

"In addition, Hategekimana is accused of conducting sensitisation meetings to incite massacres, and deploying soldiers to roadblocks to stop Tutsi civilians and bring them to Ngoma Camp to be killed. The accused is also alleged to have failed to take measures to prevent, or to put an end to widespread rape of girls and women in Butare Prefecture," the tribunal reported.

Hategekimana was arrested on 16 February in Brazzaville, and transferred three days later to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania.

The UN Security Council established the tribunal in 1995 to bring to trial the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which some 800,000 people died. Since its inception, the tribunal has handed down 11 judgments - 10 convictions and one acquittal.