Gacaca had sentenced Habimana to life for Genocide last year

HUYE - The recently captured FDLR Spokesman Lt. Col. Michel Habimana, alias Edmond Ngarambe, was in November last year handed a life sentence in absentia by a Gacaca Court for complicity in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis, it has emerged. Information we have indicates that a Gacaca court session held in Gitovu cell, Kinazi sector of Huye District – where he hails from, found him guilty of several counts including; inciting people to kill, mounting roadblocks, supplying weapons and mobilizing locals to compile lists of Tutsis to be killed. “It was alleged that he moved around the whole sector mobilizing people to kill. The court consequently found him guilty of various genocide crimes,” a source who preferred anonymity told The New Times on phone Tuesday. He is reported to have appointed leaders at roadblocks during the genocide and supplied grenades and other weapons. Habimana was also, reportedly, found guilty of organizing meetings to prepare groundwork for the genocide. “In April 1994, he is said to have driven to Nyarugunga, gathered local authorities and asked them what people in this cell were doing yet in other areas people had finished work?”, the source revealed, citing witnesses testimonies. “Work” here was a euphemism for exterminating Tutsis.“He even is said to have boastfully declared having been among those who killed Uwilingiyimana.” After examining the different witnesses, the court is said to have found incriminating evidence and passed the guilty verdict. Also clear now is that as witness accounts state, in 1993 he took his brother – Jacques Bizamenyavuba, away claiming that he was going to a driving school, but as was later revealed, the brother had been taken to train to be part of the Interahamwe militia who spearheaded the Genocide. Bizamenyavuba was later very active and mobilizing genocidaires when the killing spree finally began. Habimana on his part was accused of setting up a roadblock at Nyarugunga and appointing his father as its supervisor. Ends

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Gacaca had sentenced Habimana to life for Genocide last year