Two Rwandans, former close friends of the ex-presidential couple Habyarimana, were declared guilty of “war crimes” and “crimes of genocide” Tuesday evening by the Brussels Assize Court which tried them for their participation in the extermination of Tutsis in 1994.
In its verdict, rendered after a week of deliberations, the jury rejected the arguments of the lawyers of Pierre Basabosé, 76 years old, and Séraphin Twahirwa, 66 years old, who contested their participation in this genocide.
The two men, who face life imprisonment, will be determined on their sentence following further deliberations in the days to come.
As required by Belgian law, court verdicts are rendered in two stages, with a new sequence of requisitions and defense pleadings being provided in the event of guilt.
Since 2001, this is the sixth assize trial in Belgium linked to the genocide of the Tutsis perpetrated in Rwanda almost thirty years ago.
In this trial opened at the beginning of October, Séraphin Twahirwa was accused of having led Interahamwe militiamen (Hutu extremists) in Kigali who were behind dozens of murders between April and July 1994.
He also had to answer for a dozen rapes committed against Tutsi women.
For his part, Pierre Basabosé, a former soldier who became a rich entrepreneur, was mainly accused of having supplied weapons to the militia, particularly to Twahirwa’s men.
A former member of the presidential guard in the 1970s, he was also one of the shareholders of Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, infamous for having broadcast calls to kill Tutsis during the genocide.
The two accused, arrested in Belgium in September 2020, were also claimed by Rwanda. They were tried in Belgium under the “universal jurisdiction” of Belgian courts for crimes under international humanitarian law committed abroad.
On April 6, 1994, the plane of President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was the target of a missile strike above Kigali airport, during the landing phase.
This attack, which also cost the life of his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira, is considered the triggering event of the genocide in Rwanda, which left at least 800,000 dead between April and July according to the UN. The victims are mainly among the Tutsi minority but also among moderate Hutus.