Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
24 November 2008
Kigali — Samuel Ndorimana, 38, saw his verdict of life imprisonment confirmed in an appeal before the court of the Nyakabanda sector, Kigali district, reports Hirondelle Agency.
He was found guilty of complicity to murder with torture, of the Kayiranga, Gatete, Alexis Karangwa, a man named Simba families and a score of people in Nyakabanda and of illegal use and possession of firearms and organization of road blocks.
By pleading not guilty, Ndorimana affirmed that he had been forced to assist, powerlessly, to the execution of all these victims and denied any responsibility. "All that people have said of me are pure lies. A group of armed killers forced me to follow him to Kayiranga and Gatete. And they killed them with their families. Me, I did not even have a weapon", he said.
According to all the eyewitnesses, all the victims were executed the same night and thrown in a 20-meter long common grave, some still alive. At least 180 bodies were exhumed from it, stated a witness.
After the genocide, the defendant had escaped until his arrest last July. He notably lived far from his family: in Remera, a district of Kigali, as a member of the Local Defence Forces, then in Bugesera, in the East Province, as a mason before returning in 1998
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