During this appearance, the indictment will be read out to the defendant and he will be asked to plead guilty or not guilty. Thereafter the registrar in charge of the case will set a date for the start of the trial.
Initially, the ICTR had foreseen Captain Nizeyimana to appear before a judge this week. "Supplementary time has been granted to the defendant and his lawyer for them to examine the case before the initial appearance, which should take place in the course of next week", ICTR spokesperson Roland Amoussouga explained on Thursday.
According to M. Amoussouga, Captain Nizeyimana has been provided with the legal aid of a Tanzanian lawyer, Bharat Chadha.
Charged by the ICTR with genocide and crimes against humanity, Captain Nizeyimana was at the time under consideration, in 1994, second in command of the Non Commissioned Officers School (Ecole des sous-officiers, ESO) in Butare (south of Rwanda).
« Captain Nizeyimana, in exercise of his authority, set up secret units of extremist elements whom he assigned secret missions », », reads the indictment. It goes on : "In the course of one of these secret missions, on the 20th of April 1994, Captain Nizeyimana sent a section of soldiers led by 2nd Lieutenant Pierre Bizimana to the home of Queen Rosalie Gicanda, a symbolic figure for all Tutsis, and ordered her execution which was subsequently carried out".
Rosalie Gicanda was the widow of the next to last king of Rwanda, Mutara III Rudahigwa.
"These extremist elements also included northern officers at the ESO, hailing from the same region as Captain Nizeyimana and over whom he exercised almost exclusive authority. These officers were all directly answerable to Captain Nizeyimana and carried out his orders".
In the UN Detention Facility, Captain Nizeyimana joins several of his former companions, amongst whom Lieutenant Ildephonse Hategekimana, in 1994 the commander of the small military camp of Ngoma, also in Butare.
According to expert witnesses called upon by the prosecution, Nizeyimana and Hategekimana closely collaborated during the genocide.
ER/GF