03.03.09 - GACACA/RWANDA - GACACA: JUDGE IN THE DOCK

Kigali, 3 March 2009 (FH) - Aboubakar Karemera, President of a Gacaca court in Kigali, is accused of complicity to genocide and crimes against humanity, reports Hirondelle Agency.

The President of the semi-traditional Gacaca Court of Munanira Cell in  Nyakabanda Sector, in the Rwandan capital, Karemera was in particular prosecuted for illegal possession of a firearm and participation in a road block during the genocide committed against ethnic Tutsis in 1994.

He is also accused to have deliberately hidden files of alleged genocidaires.

At the hearing on Sunday, a dozen witnesses reported that a pregnant Tutsi woman in Munanira cell had been savagely killed and cut into pieces, before being exposed at the road block. These witnesses deplored that Karemera, who was charged with coordinating the investigation, did not establish any case on the murder.

The judgement is expected on Sunday.

The gacaca (pronounced gatchatcha) courts are charged with trying alleged authors of the 1994 genocide, which resulted, according to the UN, in nearly 800 000 killed, primarily Tutsis.

They are presided, not by professional magistrates, but by people considered of high esteem in the community.

But some of these "esteem people" themselves have been accused of having taking part in the genocide. Others have been arrested for corruption.

SRE/ER/MM/SC/GF

© Hirondelle News Agency

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