NDINDABAHIZI ORDERED KILLINGS OF TUTSIS, WITNESS CLAIMS

Arusha, September 4, 2003 (FH) – The fourth prosecution witness in the Ndindabahizi trial on Wednesday told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that the former Finance Minister in the interim government ordered Hutus to kill Tutsis at a road block in Kayenzi secteur within Kibuye prefecture. The protected witness, a woman aged 16 during the genocide, testified that the suspect arrived in a convoy of two vehicles and stopped at a road block in a place called Faye.

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One vehicle was his personal car and the other was a small pick-up carrying machetes. She could not remember the exact date but she said it was in May 1994. The witness who was hiding “five meters” away, said Ndindabahizi asked fifteen Hutus manning the roadblock if “they had finished killing Tutsis. ” She went on that he was answered they had spared Tutsi women married to Hutus. “He ordered them to get into the pick-up, take machetes and kill Tutsi women married to Hutus and children whose mothers were Tutsis,” she then said. The witness, led in his chief evidence by the prosecuting attorney, Wallace Kapaya of Tanzania, also stated that she had seen the suspect at Gitaka shopping centre within Gitesi Commune when he visited the place three times between 1990 and 1992. Ndindabahizi 53 is charged with three counts including genocide and crimes against humanity (extermination and murder). He allegedly perpetrated massacres of civilians in his home prefecture of Kibuye, western Rwanda. Asked by Ndindabahizi's co-counsel Guillaume Marçais (France) if she was introduced to the suspect during his visits to Gitaka shopping centre, the witness said people just pointed at the suspect telling her he was Ndindabahizi. Counsel Marçais also voiced some doubts regarding the credibility of the testimony of the witness, wondering why she had waited until 2001 to “talk about such important events” to investigators. She replied that no one had contacted her before then. Earlier in the afternoon, the evidence of the third prosecution witness, code-named CBH, was taken entirely in closed session. After the fourth prosecution witness completed her testimony, the trial was adjourned to Monday due to lack of witnesses. Ndindabahizi's trial started on September 1st. The trial is before Trial Chamber composed of Judge Erik Mose (Norway) presiding, Judge Khalida Rachid (Pakistan) and Judge Solomy Bossa (Uganda). PJ/CE/FH (NB'0904e)