APA – Kigali (Rwanda) – Dr. Sosthene Munyemana, a former medical doctor at the University Hospital in Butare (CHUB) in southern Rwanda has been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and complicity in such crimes, a judicial source revealed as the verdit is set for Tuesday.
Advocate General Sophie Havard, one of the prosecutors, called on the court to find Munyemana guilty so “crimes against humanity don’t remain crimes without a criminal, a genocide without a perpetrator.”
At the time, Munyemana was a 38-year-old gynecologist in Tumba in the southern university district of Butare, the rench prosecutor said he supervised the genocide and of participating in a local committee and meetings that organized roundups of Tutsi civilians.
He is also accused of co-signing in April 1994 “a motion of support” for the interim government that supervised the genocide, according to the prosecution.
Munyemana acknowledged participating in local night patrols which were organized to track Tutsi people, but he said he did it to protect the local population. Witnesses saw him at checkpoints set up across the town where he supervised operations, according to prosecutors.
Judicial reports seen by APA Thursday suggest that a judge at the Cour d’ Assises de Paris, will hand the verdict in the case of Dr. Sosthene Munyemana who is accused for being at the forefront of massacres in Tumba – a locality in current Huye town, southern Rwanda – a role that earned him the nickname “butcher of Tumba”.
In one of the many testimoniesbefore the Cour d’assises de Paris, a survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi recounted the brutal nightmare she endured under the orders of Dr. Sostherne Munyemana.
The witness further revealed that Munyemana, in collaboration with other sector leaders, initiated roadblocks where numerous Tutsi were targeted and killed. She alleged that Munyemana maintained a list of people to be killed.
The killings did not stop at physical violence. The witness claimed that Tutsi women were injected with syringes containing deadly substances in their private parts.
These needles, provided by Munyemana, were allegedly filled with medicines aimed at causing rapid death. The witness spoke of the unimaginable moment she witnessed, such as removing syringes from her mother-in-law’s body.
According to the survivor, Munyemana, a gynaecologist, actively participated in encouraging the Interahamwe (Hutu militias) to commit further killings.
CU/abj/APA