The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), on Monday, closed the hearing of prosecution witnesses in the trial case of former Minister of Planning, Augustin Ngirabatware.Ngirabatware, 52, is charged with nine counts which include; Genocide, Conspiracy to Commit Genocide; Complicity in Genocide and Direct and Public Incitement to Commit Genocide.Others are; Crimes against Humanity for Murder, Extermination, Rape, Inhumane Acts and Serious Violations of the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II.Prosecution Attorney Wallace Kapaya told the Tanzania-based court that a witness codenamed PRW3, due to personal security, is still waiting for authorisation from the Nigerian government to travel to ICTR’s headquarters, yet the country had promised to allow him come to ICTR to witness.The other witness, who bears the pseudonym PRW6, had assured the prosecution that he would be available after Presidential elections in Senegal, but prosecutors said he appears increasingly less cooperative and he keeps setting new deadlines.Like other five prosecution witnesses, prosecution witness PRW4, on Monday, refuted Ngirabatware’s alibi that he was in Dakar between April and May 1994.Witness PRW4 affirmed that he was in charge of receiving foreign affairs ministers only, therefore stating that Ngirabatware was not among them.Prosecution insists that the accused is individually responsible for killing members of the Tutsi ethnic group in the then Gisenyi Prefecture, and for raping Tutsi women, as part of a widespread or systematic attack on civilians.
