Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
23 October 2008
Arusha — A Tutsi civilian stated Thursday before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that Captain Innocent Sagahutu, indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, saved his life in 1994.
Protected by code name "RVS" for his security and hidden from the public by an opaque curtain, the witness claimed that the defendant had initially lodged him in his house in Kigali before putting him in a armoured vehicle in July 1994, when the Rwandan army was retreating, leaving, in its rout, thousands of people who were still in the capital.
The defendant, on trial with three other officers of the former Rwandan Armed Forces (RAF), commanded a squadron of the reconnaissance battalion, whose armoured vehicles covered the withdrawal of the governmental troops.
"He took me in the armoured vehicle. It was a great sea of humanity which was leaving Kigali", the survivor responded to a question by Fabien Segatwa, Burundian lawyer of the accused. After the exit from the capital, he jumped in, according to his testimony, in a military truck besides certain men of the Captain.
According to RVS, Sagahutu and some elements of his squadron continued their escape until Gisenyi, northern Rwanda, then in Bukavu, in the east of the former Zaire, the current Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The witness said that two weeks after his arrival in the Congolese city, he told the Captain of his will to return to Rwanda to get news of his family.
"He said to me that if I did not have anything to fear, I was free to leave. He gave me 20 US dollars for the voyage and I left (...) and it is only here that I see him again for the first time since then", stated the witness who testified in Rwandan.
RVS specified that he had, however, become acquainted with his benefactor only at the height of the massacres as he had gone to seek refuge at his police friend by the name of Alphonse, who he could not further identify.
While carrying out the cross-examination, Abubacar Tambadou, of the office of the prosecutor, was astonished that he clearly mentioned the name and rank of the accused and was unable to give more on Alphonse, a friend whom he knew since 1993. Also strange for the Gambian lawyer was the fact that a Tutsi civilian was evacuated in an armoured vehicle of the Rwandan army in July 1994. "He did not want to leave me behind", replied the witness, explaining that bullets where raining down during the day of the retreat of the army from Kigali.
At the end of his hearing, the witness, underlining his safety, asked the Tribunal to help him not go back to Rwanda. The president of the Chamber answered him that those who brought him were going to examine his request. Called to the stand by the defence or the prosecution, the witnesses are brought to the ICTR by a specialized service of the registry.
Captain Sagahutu is on trial with the former commander of the reconnaissance battalion, Major François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, the former Chief of Staff of Army, General Augustin Bizimungu, and former Chief of Staff of Gendarmerie, General Augustin Ndindiliyimana. All four have denied to have played any role in the 1994 genocide.
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