The Brussels Assize Court rendered its decision on Tuesday December 19 in the sixth trial linked to the genocide of the Tutsis organized in Belgium. Séraphin Twahirwa and Pierre Basabose, two former Rwandan officials, were found guilty of “crimes of genocide” and “war crimes”, after more than two months of debates and a week of deliberations.
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Laura Broulard
The Brussels Assize Court followed the majority of requisitions of the public prosecutor, Tuesday December 19. Behind the convictions for genocide and war crimes, there are dozens of murders and attacks committed in Kigali against the Tutsi minority between April and June 1994, and in the case of Séraphin Twahirwa, a dozen rapes. committed with will ” of “ hurt ” And ” to humiliate » and who carried “ attack on the fertility of Tutsi women and their social ties », Estimate the jurors.
They also present Séraphin Twahirwa as an important interahamwe leader from Kigali having enrolled and trained the militiamen who then killed under orders, but also at his side in the Gikondo district.
The expected sentences
Pierre Basabose was “ at the heart of the genocidal machine ”, according to the court. The judgment specifies that he condoned and encouraged these massacres by providing financial and logistical assistance to the interahamwe of Gikondo, but also to the hate media, Radio des Mille Collines, as a shareholder. The jury found him guilty while noting that his state of health impairs his ability to discern. Several experts have in fact declared that at 76 years old, he suffers from senile dementia.
In accordance with the system of the Belgian Assize Court, the requisitions and the verdict on the sentences will take place in a second phase, in the coming days.
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