A year and three months following his life sentence over his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the former deputy commander of the Gendarmerie (police) Phillipe Hategekimana, alias Biguma, is back in court for an appeal hearing. The Cour d’assises chambre d’appel in France, on Monday, November 4, started hearing the case in which Hategekimana, 67, appealed against his life sentence, with the trial expected to run until December 22. ALSO READ: French court hands Hategekimana life sentence for Genocide crimes Last year, the Cour d’Assizzes de Paris sentenced him to life after finding him guilty of charges related to Genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity. The charges encompass the massacres in Nyanza, Nyabubare, Nyamure, Ntyazo, and ISAR (Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda) Songa, where Hategekimana was reported to have either led the gendarmes involved in the killing of Tutsi individuals or coordinated killings along with the gendarmes and Interahamwe militia at roadblocks. Hategekimana was also convicted of murdering Bourgmester Narcisse Nyagasaza of the former Ntyazo commune, as well as a police officer named Pierre Nyakarashi. ALSO READ: More witnesses pin Genocide suspect Hategekimana on Ntyazo massacres He later fled to France and assumed the false identity of Phillippe Manier. Hategekimana obtained refugee status and later worked as a university security guard in Rennes. He acquired French citizenship in 2005. Media reports indicate that he fled France, for Cameroon, in late 2017 after facing press coverage regarding a complaint filed against him by France-based rights group Collectif des Parties Civiles pours le Rwanda (CPCR), which has over the years worked to see Genocide suspects living in France brought to book. In 2018, Hategekimana was apprehended in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and subsequently extradited to France. Since 2019, he was in custody awaiting trial. His trial was the fifth, in France, from which a perpetrator of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was convicted.
