Arusha, May 15 2007 (FH) - A very well known humans rights activist in Rwanda, François-Xavier Byumba, has been held since Sunday in Kigali for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide, this information was provided on Tuesday by a local source.
"He was arrested on Sunday, on an arrest warrant from the gacaca court of the Biryogo sector (in the city of Kigali); he was initially held in a dungeon before being transferred this morning to Kigali's central prison", indicated to the Hirondelle agency a member of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and the Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR), one of the organizations Byuma holds membership.
"During his court appearance on Sunday, persons accused him, notably, of taken part in the erection of road blocks where Tutsis were killed; the gacaca court, thus, decided to arrest him ", added the source joined by telephone from Arusha.
Another organization, the League for Human Rights in the Great Lakes Region (LDGL), where Byuma was vice-president, had expressed fears, last week, that Byuma would be charged due to old grievances and had requested "the intervention of the National Service of the Gacaca Jurisdictions (SNJG) to ensure that François Xavier Byuma has a just and fair trial"
According to the LDGL, the association Turengere abana (Protect the Children), where Byuma is the president, published "a report denouncing a case of rape whose presumed perpetrator" would be Sudi Imanzi, the president of the gacaca jurisdiction of Biryogo.
Inspired by traditional Rwandan justice, the gacacas (pronounced gatchatcha), are charged with the judging of the majority of the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide which killed, according to Kigali, nearly a million people, primarily Tutsis.
ER/PB/MM
© Hirondelle News Agency