\nArusha, February 18, 2004 (FH) - A prosecution witness in the \u201cMilitary I\u201d trial involving the former commander of the Kanombe Para-military battalion, Major Aloys Ntabakuze, on Wednesday reconfirmed before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) what he said in his testimony during examination in chief. Ntabakuze is jointly charged with the former director of cabinet in the Rwandan ministry of defence, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the former head of operations in the former Rwandan army, Brigadier General Gratien Kabiligi,and the former military commander of Gisenyi region, Lieutenant Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva.\n<\/p>\n
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\nThey are mostly charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. All have pleaded not guilty. The witness, code-named \u201cGS\u201d to conceal his identity, was cross-examined by Ntabakuze's co-counsel, Andr\u00e9 Tremblay from Canada and Bagosora's lead counsel Raphael Constant (France) regarding his testimony. GS reconfirmed that he heard Ntabakuze predicting the genocide. \u201cI saw him snapping his fingers and heard him saying, \u2018they have killed him (Habyarimana) but many will die as a result of his death',\u201d he repeated. The death of former president Habyarimana on the evening of the 6th of April triggered off the genocide against Tutsis as well as massacres of the opposition that claimed the lives of an estimated one million lives between April and July, 1994. The witness also said that Ntabakuze was present when an order was made to make coffins for the people who would be killed. \u201cMajor Ntabakuze was in thecompany of Major Ntibihura who was the in charge of the BM battalion, when Ntibihura gave instructions for the construction of caskets,\u201d the witness said. GS who was himself a member of the BM battalion (in charge of construction) at Kanombe also confirmed that he saw his commander \u201cdistributing weapons daily at the Kanombe camp\u201d. GS, the 44th prosecution witness, also reconfirmed that he saw Para-commando unit soldiers leaving the camp a day after the death of the president and started massacres around Kanombe. \u201cI saw dead bodies near Kanombe camp,\u201d he said. After cross-examination of GS was completed, the prosecution fell short of witnesses. The next witness to testify, code-named AH, was reported ill. The next witnesses, DN, DBQ and XAQ, are expected to arrive in Arusha on Wednesday evening. Presiding judge Erik Mose expressed concern over the shortage of witnesses. He informed the registrar to ensure that \u201cthere must always be more witnesses than required at any one time\u201d. The trial will proceed on Thursday afternoon. It is in Trial Chamber One of the ICTR, presided over by Judge Erik M\u00f8se of Norway, assisted by Judge Serguei Aleckseievich Egorov of Russia and Judge Jai Ram Reddy of Fiji. SV\/CE\/FH (ML'0218e)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, February 18, 2004 (FH) - A prosecution witness in the \u201cMilitary I\u201d trial involving the former commander of the Kanombe Para-military battalion, Major Aloys Ntabakuze, on Wednesday reconfirmed before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) what he said in his testimony during examination in chief. Ntabakuze is jointly charged with the former director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-18330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n