RWANDA/JUSTICE Appeals hearings October 8 for former Habyarimana aide: A Rwandan court on Tuesday threw out a request from Runyinya Barayabwiriza, a former diplomatic advisor to President Juvénal Habyarimana, asking for the case against him to be dropped. On June 2, Barayabwiriza had asked the judges to reject a prosecution appeal against his acquittal three years ago of genocide charges. He argued that the appeal had not been filed within the time period required. The court, however, rejected this and set October 8 for the appeals hearings.
SCSL/RWANDA Charles Taylor asks to be transferred to Rwanda: Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, sentenced to 50 years in jail, has asked to be transferred to Rwanda, which already holds in its prisons several other convicts of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). Taylor, who was convicted of crimes against humanity committed in Sierra Leone’s civil war, is currently held in a high security prison near Durham, northeast England. He argues in the request that he would be closer to his wife and children if he were transferred to Rwanda.
SWEDEN/RWANDALife sentence confirmed for Rwandan engineer: A court in Stockholm on Thursday confirmed the life sentence handed down against Stanislas Mbanenande, a Rwandan engineer who had obtained Swedish nationality. Swedish judges found that he had a “low level command role and took part with others in murders, attempted murders, incitement to murder and kidnappings” in Kibuye, western Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide.
FRANCE /RWANDAYoung politicians demand “truth” about Rwandan genocide: Several youth wings of French political parties have demanded their government reveal “the truth about the anti-Tutsi genocide” of 1994. The call was published Thursday in French daily newspaper Libération. The presidents of these youth wings say that “Paris clearly supported the genocidal regime in Rwanda before, during and after the genocide committed against Tutsis, which left more than 800,000 dead between April and July 1994”.
NEXT WEEKThe crimes against humanity trial of Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang is set to continue before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
ER/ JC