18.10.07 - RWANDA/GACACA - ASSASSINATION OF A GACACA COURT PRESIDENT

Kigali, 18 October 2007 (FH) - The president of a Gacaca court, Paul Rutayisire, himself a genocide survivor, was assassinated on Monday night in Kigali, it was learned from an official statement published Thursday from the IBUKA association.

1 min 6Approximate reading time

Paul Rutayisire fell into an ambush while returning home; his lifeless body was found, with major trauma to his head, at dawn, according to the official statement which calls for justice and requests that the authorities track and punish these acts which perpetuate the genocide ideology.
 
Paul Rutayisire was president of the Gacaca court of the Karama sector in the Huye District in the Southern Province, he had been the object of threats on behalf of alleged genocidaire because of his duties as an honest judge, states the Ibuka text, principal association of Rwandan survivors.

The survivors and witnesses of the genocide have been victims of several aggressions during these last months, it was learned from a police source and from Ibuka. Mrs Mukamarora Costasie of the Gikonko sector in the Gisagara District was decapitated in the night of 31 August. She was the principal witness for the prosecution against her own son and several members of her in-laws for their role during the 1994 genocide.

In the same district, Mrs Uwantege Espérance of the Nyanza sector was found dead, killed in the night of 1 October. Her last testimony was on 26 September.

On the same day, a 100 kilometres to the south-west, in the Rusizi district, Mrs Mukabatsinda Espérance was raped before being killed. Her husband testified against his brothers and they threatened to kill his Tutsi wife.
 
All these cases have taken place in the Southern province, which counts to itself more 37 063 of the 78658 genocide prisoners.
 
SRE/PB/MM

© Hirondelle News Agency