A sixth trial in France in connection with the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda opens in Paris on Tuesday: a former doctor appears before the jury suspected of being involved in the 1994 massacres.
Sosthène Munyemana, 68 years old, now retired and under judicial supervision, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, participation in an agreement to prepare these crimes and complicity.
His trial is scheduled for December 22 and the defendant, who denies the facts, faces life imprisonment.
According to the United Nations, the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda between April and July 1994 claimed more than 800,000 lives.
Mr Munyemana is particularly close to Jean Kambanda, the prime minister of the interim government formed after the attack on Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane. He is suspected of having helped draft a proposal to support this government that encouraged massacres.
He is also accused of participating in a crisis committee that set up barriers and tours during which people were arrested and then killed.
Finally, he is accused of having previously held the key to the Tumba sector office, where Tutsis were sometimes imprisoned for several days and executed in “conditions of complete poverty, without water, food and care,” the indictment says.
Although he did not deny possessing this key, Mr Munyemana argued throughout the investigation that the sector office served as a “sanctuary” for Tutsis seeking a place of protection.
Almost 70 witnesses are expected to be heard in the trial.
“All this is based only on testimony and data from 29 years ago,” notes Me Jean-Yves Dupeux, who defends him together with Me Florence Bourg: “It is very difficult to rely on testimony on facts so old.”
Indeed, the issue of passage of time is central to genocide-related cases.
“We are waiting for justice to finally be done,” explains Me Rachel Lindon, a lawyer for 26 victims and Ibuka, an association of genocide survivors. “The more time that passes, the fewer witnesses we have.”
“All the cases that will happen now are dramatic and things will not get better,” complains Alain Gauthier, President of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR).
Arriving in France in September 1994, where his wife, a father of three, was already living, Mr. Munyemana worked as an emergency doctor in the southwest of the country before reorienting himself to geriatrics.
Although there was an international arrest warrant against him from the Rwandan authorities, his asylum application was rejected in 2008. However, the French judiciary refused to extradite him in 2010 so that he could be tried in his country.
This is the oldest case being investigated in France in the name of the universal jurisdiction of the French judiciary over facts related to the genocide.
The trial, which opened in 1995 following a complaint lodged in Bordeaux (south-west), was moved to Paris in 2001. The fee notice was only issued in 2018.
Three high-ranking officials, an officer, a gendarme and a driver, have already been sentenced in Paris to prison terms ranging from 14 years to life for their involvement in the massacres. Some will be reheard on appeal.