01.05.09 - ICTR/SETAKO - SETAKO: EX-RWANDAN ARMY OFFICER STARTS HIS DEFENCE MONDAY

1 May 2009 By

Arusha, 1 May 2009 (FH) - Former Rwandan Army Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Ephrem Setako, accused of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, starts his defence on Monday before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Republish

To multiply its impact, information must flow freely

Republish our original articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.

Click here to republish this content

0 min 39Approximate reading time

A graduate of the National Military School (ESM) and of the Faculty of Law of the National University of Rwanda (UNR), the officer, who has pleaded not guilty, was during the 1994 genocide, Director of Legal Affairs at the defence ministry.

Setako is presented by the prosecutor as a privileged person because he hailed from the same region as President Juvenal Habyarimana.

At the opening of the trial on 25 August 2008, Ifeoma Ojemini Okali had accused Setako to have trained and armed Interahamwe militiamen and to have ordered them to kill Tutsis in several communes of his native prefecture of Ruhengeri (northern Rwanda) and in the capital, Kigali.

Mrs Ojemini Okali rested her case on 22 April after having called 20 witnesses.

Setako was arrested in February 2004 in a center for asylum seekers in The Netherlands.

ER/MM/SC/GF