The trial of Lt. Joel Mutabazi and 15 others started today at the Military High Court in Kanombe, Kigali. Mutabazi, a former Rwanda Defence Forces officer, is accused of multiple charges, including deserting the army, forgery, terrorism, illegal possession of fire arms, formation of an armed group, murder, conspiracy to murder and spreading rumors with the intention to incite the public to rise up against the State. He fled to Uganda in October 2011, from where he allegedly operated a terror cell responsible for a spate of grenade attacks in Kigali. The suspect, who was the subject of an Interpol red notice, was handed over to Rwandan authorities in October and first appeared in court on November 13. Prosecution charges that he’s a collaborator of the DRC-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the militia largely blamed for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as well as renegade former Rwandan military officers based in South Africa. The government says both the FDLR and the renegade officers are behind the grenade attacks that rocked the capital Kigali in recent years.
