Led by prosecuting counsel, Charles Adeogun- Phillips, protected prosecution witness code-named "AYQ" to protect his identity, whose Tutsi husband and three children were among hundreds of civilians killed at the spot, alleged that the accused asked them to leave Gisagara Market where they sought refuge to go to nearby Kabuye Hill, promising they would be protected.
She said soldiers escorted them to Kabuye Hill only to be fired at and attacked by Hutu interahamwe militiamen. According to the indictment, the Kabuye massacres occurred between April 21 and 25, 1994 and thousands of innocent civilians perished in the attacks.
‘'We were not protected as promised, instead attackers shot at us. We could see people falling on the ground dead,'' she lamented, saying that she lost her spouse and three children out of six in the attack.
She recalled that fateful day : it was raining heavily with lightning which facilitated the interahamwe militiamen and other attackers to effectively implement their killing spree as refugees were scrambling to escape the bullet shots. ‘'We fled the whole night,'' she claimed.
According to AYQ, since she was Hutu, who were not targeted like Tutsis, the following day she went back to her locality leaving the Kabuye Hill littered with several hundred of corpses.
The defence cross examined the witness, but mostly in closed session. The trial presided over by Judge Khalida Khan from Pakistan, continues on Tuesday.
The former sub-prefect was arrested on 16 October 2007 in Carcassonne, south-western France, on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the ICTR on 21 September of the same year.
NI/SC/GF
© Hirondelle News Agency