Former prefect pleads not guilty to genocide

At his initial appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the former prefect of Kigali-rural prefecture, Francois Karera, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

He is accused of having ordered soldiers, communal police officers and Interahamwe Hutu militia from Nyamirambo commune to destroy Tutsi homes and kill their occupants, the Tribunal reported. "The accused himself distributed weapons for the purpose," it added. In the village of Ntarama, it reported, Karera "incited soldiers" to attack Tutsi civilians who had taken refuge in the church saying, "You have been fighting the Tutsi for one week but now the job will be finished. I don't want to see one Tutsi alive in Ntarama sector by tonight."

Karera and some army officers are also accused of having patrolled the prefecture to search for and kill Tutsi civilians. One of the officers who took part in those patrols, Col. Theoneste Bagosora, is now in the Tribunal's custody. Karera, born in or about 1939, was arrested on 20 October in Nairobi, Kenya, and transferred to the Tribunal's detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania.