24.09.07 - ICTR/NGIRABATWARE - THE INDICTMENT AGAINST NGIRABATWARE IS NOT PROBLEMATIC (PROSECUTOR)

Arusha, 24 September 2007 (FH) - The indictment against Augustin Ngirabatware, the former Rwandan Minister for Planning during the 1994 genocide arrested recently in Germany, does not have any "problems", explained to the Hirondelle agency the spokesperson for the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

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On Thursday, in confirming the arrest last Monday in Frankfurt of this defendant, the spokesperson had explained that the publication of this indictment, which dated back to October 1999, was "problematic" due to printing difficulties. This document, given manually Friday to the Hirondelle agency, was still not available Monday on the site of the tribunal.

According to this indictment, Ngirabatware is being prosecuted for an agreement in order to commit genocide, genocide, complicity to genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is, in the text given to the Hirondelle agency, jointly accused with the former Minister for Higher Education, Scientific Research and Culture, Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, definitively sentenced to life in prison in September 2005.

This document dated 27 September 1999 was confirmed on the following 1 October. The arrest warrant was signed by the Senegalese Judge Andrésia Vaz. The prosecutor insists on his influence as an "eminent academic" and on the fact that he is the son-in-law of Félicien Kabuga; relative by marriage to President Juvénal Habyarimana, suspected of having been the financier of the genocide and still wanted by the ICTR.

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