The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), will today render a judgment against former Cabinet Director in the Rwandan Interior Ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira. The judgement will be delivered in ICTR’s Trial Chamber III to be composed of judges Dennis Byron, presiding, Vagn Joensen, and Gberdao Gustave Kam. Kalimanzira is charged with Genocide, Complicity in Genocide and Direct and Public Incitement to Commit Genocide. He is largely accused for his alleged personal involvement and supervision of massacres in Butare, in the Southern Province, during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. During its closing arguments heard in April this year, the prosecution requested the court to give a life sentence to the former Cabinet Director, saying that the accused, like many other convicted former politicians, deserved to be jailed for life. “The Prosecutor submits that Callixte Kalimanzira should be sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life for the crimes of which he is charged,” Prosecutor Ousman Jammeh argued at the time. He added that given the sentencing practice of the ICTR, a life sentence is the only punishment that would reflect the gravity of his direct and individual responsibility in killing innocent Tutsis in Butare and the country in general. The life sentence is the heaviest punishment the 15-year old tribunal can pass. Kalimanzira is also alleged to have supported policies of the interim government which planned and supervised the Genocide that left over one million people dead within 100 days. In its submissions, the prosecution added that there was no mitigating factor in the accused’s case, but that there was instead an aggravating factor because Kalimanzira abused his position of authority in society yet he had a responsibility to promote peace and reconciliation. A witness testifying in the case of former Rwandan military officer, Tharcisse Muvunyi last week alleged that Kalimanzira was among senior government officials who attended a meeting that rallied many extremist elements into taking up arms against innocent Tutsis. Born in 1953, in Muganza Commune, Southern Province, Kalimanzira trained as an agronomist and held several top positions in the former Rwandan government. Ends
