According to the subpoena of the Registrar Ferdinand Niyonzima, the appearance of the former prefect is set for 18 June before the Superior Court of Rusizi, in his old prefecture. The document, written in Kinyarwanda and consulted by the Hirondelle agency, states that Bagambiki is accused of rapes and of complicity to rape during the 1994 genocide.
The former prefect had been acquitted by the Trial Chamber in February 2004, at the same time as the former Minister André Ntagerura, with whom he was tried. With the appeal filed by the Prosecutor having been rejected, their acquittal was confirmed by the Appeal Chamber in February 2006.
Due to the lack of host countries, they live, with another person acquitted by the ICTR, in a "safe house" at the headquarters of the court in Arusha, Tanzania. They are legally under the protection of the court as long as no host country can be found.
A few days following the appeal judgment, Kigali announced that a case for rapes had been open against Bagambiki in Rwandan justice.
In March 2006, the representative of the Rwandan government at the ICTR, Aloys Mutabingwa, had given to the court of the United Nations a warrant for the arrest against the former prefect. "There was no continuation on behalf of the ICTR", indicated Thursday a diplomat to the Hirondelle agency. "It is necessary that he appears, he is being indicted in Rwanda for crimes which he did not face at the ICTR", insisted M. Mutabingwa.
ER/PB/MM
© Hirondelle News Agency
