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Radio official pleads not guilty to genocide

    ARUSHA

    A former senior radio official in Rwanda pleaded not guilty on Friday before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to charges of inciting hatred, which led to killing of some 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the 1994 genocide.

    Joseph Serugendo, 52, was the technical chief of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and a member of the national committee of a Hutu militia, known as the Interahamwe, which has been largely blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

    Serugendo was arrested in September in Libreville, the capital of Gabon.

    The presiding judge, Khalida Khan, read the five-count indictment against Serugendo. It included the allegation that he established, funded and operated RTLM to disseminate anti-Tutsi messages.

    In December 2003, the tribunal convicted two owners of RTLM and a newspaper editor on similar charges.

    Trials are currently underway for 25 other people accused of crimes relating to the genocide. The tribunal has, so far, convicted 22 people and acquitted three.

    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

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