The protracted trial of FDLR militia leaders, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, who are facing charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on Congolese territory, in a German court, resumed Monday after the Christmas break.

Sources say the trial resumed with revelations about how the duo shielded genocidaires, including Grégoire Ndahimana, a former mayor suspected to have had a direct hand in the killing of up to 1,600 civilians during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Before his capture and arrest, in 2009, Ndahimana was secretary of FDLR chief, Harerimana, alias Santa Maria, in DR Congo’s North Kivu province.

Murwanashyaka and his deputy, Musoni, were arrested on November 17, 2009, in Germany and they face 65 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was first arrested in Mannheim, Germany, in April 2006, only to be released.

The current trial began on May 4, 2011, before the Oberlandesgericht, or the Higher Regional Court, in the south-western Germany city of Stuttgart.

Crimes against humanity

In 2009, the two accused were arrested on a warrant issued by German Federal Prosecutors who confirmed that the fugitives were leaders of a "terrorist group (FDLR) that is accused of crimes against humanity and different ‘systematic’ war crimes” against the civilian population in DR Congo.

German prosecutors in 2009 acknowledged that the duo led a para-military organisation that had "killed hundreds of Congolese, raped women and recruited child soldiers.”

In June 2002, Germany introduced a new International Penal Code to deal with the crime of genocide and other crimes against humanity and terrorism. It is this law that now enables German prosecutors to try a civilian for command responsibility over atrocities committed outside Germany.

In February 2010, Rwanda’s then envoy to Germany, Christine Nkulikiyinka, told The New Times that sections of the German civil society and politicians wanted the duo’s trial expedited.

At the time, Nkulikiyinka said the German civil society was pressurising on prosecutors to speed up the trial, but the latter also indicated they wanted enough time to gather irrefutable evidence.

The FDLR comprises remnants of the ex-Far and Interahamwe militia that masterminded the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The group is blacklisted as a terrorist entity mainly because of the crimes they have committed in the DR Congo for the past 20 years.

They face military action by UN and Congolese forces after ignoring a disarmament ultimatum.