Modeste Madengeri, a Tutsi in his fifties, is charged with assassination, association with criminals, illegal detention of firearms, use of terror to monopolize goods of others, not bringing assistance to people in danger and looting of corpses.
The accused would have killed a certain Gakwaya during the genocide.
He is also accused of having been present at barrier in his district of Nyamirambo, close to Nyakabanda.
Modeste Madengeri appeared last Sunday and recognized his presence on the barrier. He refuted all other allegations.
He explained that two soldiers, members of the former Rwandan Armed Forces, helped him as the Sun City hotel in Nyamirambo, where he had sought refuge, was attacked and had led him to a barrier set up near his residence. They immediately instructed the Interahamwe militiamen of the district that nobody was to harm him, he said.
The defendant stated that he was the victim of an "orchestrated set-up by those who have family members in prison or who themselves were imprisoned following my testimonies"
"The barrier was in Nyamirambo, where I live even now, the witnesses of the prosecution are in majority of the same district, the alleged crimes were committed in this sector, and it is the sector of Nyakabanda which organizes my trial. A devilish arrangement, is it not?", Modeste Madengeri told Hirondelle News Agency.
"The testimonies of the prosecution are full of contradictions, the civil parties are absent. There are many questions without answers in this trial", estimates for his part a person who attended the proceedings.
For Kayitare, the head of the justice department at Ibuka, the principal association of genocide survivors, several members of the organization were blamed, wrongfully, after having testified for the prosecution in trials.
SRE/MM/AT
© Hirondelle News Agency