The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will on Tuesday next week render a judgment in the case of former deputy Governor (Sous Prefet) Dominique Ntawukuliryayo. Described by the prosecution as “a true merchant of death”, Ntawukuliryayo is charged with Genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide in Gisagara, Southern Province where he was working. An ICTR statement sent to The New Times yesterday reveals that Ntawukulilyayo’s judgment will be delivered in the tribunal’s trial Chamber III composed of Judges Khalida Rachid Khan, Presiding, Lee Gacuiga Muthoga and Aydin Sefa Akay. “Dominique Ntawukulilyayo was responsible for killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the Tutsi racial or ethnic group, with intent to destroy in whole or in part a racial or ethnic group,” the ICTR indictment reads in part. At the beginning of the defendant’s trial last year, prosecution also pinned the accused, saying that he led his Tutsi employees into a trap of militias, promising them food and protection. “When they gathered there, he ordered for their death. He did not stop ordering to seek and kill Tutsis until the fall of the regime,” the prosecutor had said. The prosecution concluded its case on May 26, 2009 after fielding a total of 12 witnesses, whereas the defence rested its case on December 18, after presenting 23 witnesses, including the accused himself. The former Sous Prefet was arrested in 2007 in Carcassonne, south-western France, on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the ICTR and thereafter transferred to Arusha in 2008. Ends
