A Rwandan doctor who has been living in France for decades goes on trial Tuesday in Paris over his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in his home country.
Sosthene Munyemana, 68, faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and complicity in such crimes. He has denied wrongdoing. If convicted, he faces a life sentence.
The trial comes nearly three decades after the genocide in which more than 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them were killed between April and July 1994.
He has been investigated for decades. Over 60 witnesses are expected to testify at his trial. Members of the Rwandan community in France first filed a complaint against Munyemana in 1995.
Munyemana was a 38-year-old gynecologist in the district of Burate at the time of the genocide. He is accused of co-signing in April 1994 “a motion of support for the interim government” that supervised the genocide and of participating in a local committee and meetings that organized roundups of Tutsi civilians.
Many suspected perpetrators left Rwanda during and after the genocide, some settling in Europe. Some never faced justice. On Tuesday, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said it had confirmed the death of Aloys Ndimbati, a fugitive indicted by the tribunal.
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