One million Rwandans to face killing charges in village courts

One million Rwandans - an eighth of the country's population - are expected to be tried for alleged participation in the 1994 genocide, an official said yesterday. Domitilla Mukantaganzwa, executive secretary of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, said the trials, which will be conducted in traditional gacaca village courts, could start next month in a few areas but they will not get under way throughout the country until 2006. "Drawing from the experience and figures accruing from the pilot trials, we estimate a figure slightly above one million people that are supposed to be tried under the gacaca courts," Ms Mukantaganzwa told Reuters in Kigali. The new estimate of one million indicates the vast scale of the task of bringing to justice those suspected of participating in the killings of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus massacred in Rwanda between April and June 1994. The traditional courts are preparing to hear accusations against hundreds of thousands of people who are currently living freely, often beside neighbours whose relatives they are suspected of killing. [more]

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