This trial in revision will be devoted only to the hearing of new prosecution witnesses.
According to the court, only Samuel Nduwumwe and Richard Rango never had the occasion to be heard in the case. It is what the two men had brought forward by asking for the revision of the trial. "We were never advised of the staging of this trial, and, thus, we did not have the occasion to give our prosecution testimony", they pointed out in their letter addressed to the president of the gacaca court of Rugenge.
But certain survivors criticized this decision of the court to limit testimonies. "New evidence can come as well from us as from these new witnesses. Why don't they want to hear all of us? Still an attempt to hide the truth?", asked an indignant Jean Marie Vianney Karangwa.
In January, an anonymous judge from the same court had indicated to the Hirondelle Agency that he preferred to hear only new witnesses to save time.
After the acquittal of the journalist in October 2008, certain survivors had denounced a trial sullied by "irregularities and bias".
According to the indictment, Dominique Makeli is prosecuted for incitement to commit genocide through the means of the national radio (Radio Rwanda), planning meetings of the genocide, attacks against Tutsis in the Rugenge sector, complicity in the murder of Tutsis in Kabgayi (central Rwanda), criminal conspiracy, and the attempted murder of Callixte Gasagara.
Released after his acquittal in October, Makeli had been detained since 1994.
SRE/ER/MM/SC
© Hirondelle News Agency
