A poster looking for the main perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda, in Kigali, in May 2020. -

SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP

Three men suspected of having taken part in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 were arrested and charged this week in Belgium, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office told AFP on Saturday, confirming information from the weekly

Le Vif / L'Express

.

"Two were arrested on Tuesday in Brussels and one on Wednesday in the province of Hainaut, in two different but very similar cases and all three charged with" serious breaches of humanitarian law "," said Eric Van Duyse, spokesperson. of the Federal Prosecutor's Office.

One of the three was placed under electronic surveillance, the other two imprisoned.

Without revealing any identity, the spokesperson assured that these suspects had been confused by “about forty witnesses” met in Rwanda as part of the Belgian investigation.

"Four letters rogatory" allowed travel to Rwanda, he said.

The possible referral of these suspects to a Belgian Assize Court "will be determined ultimately on the basis of the file presented by the investigating judge and the prosecution", according to Eric Van Duyse.

Already several convictions in Belgium

The massacres carried out at the instigation of the extremist Hutu regime in power in Rwanda left around 800,000 dead between April and July 1994, mainly among the Tutsi minority, but also among moderate Hutus, according to the UN.

In Belgium, five trials have already taken place since 2001, leading to nine convictions, in connection with the Rwandan genocide.

In 2001, four Rwandans, originally from the Butare region (south), including two Benedictine nuns, accused of having handed over to Hutu militiamen several thousand refugees in their convent, were sentenced to terms of 12 to 20 years. jail.

Their trial was a world first for national civil justice outside Rwanda.

Two Rwandan notables were then sentenced in 2005 by the Belgian courts, then an ex-major in 2007, and in 2009, a Rwandan, nicknamed the “genocide banker”, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In December 2019 in Brussels, Fabien Neretsé, a former senior Rwandan official, was convicted of the crime of genocide, for the first time in Belgium.

His sentence to 25 years in prison became final in May with the rejection of his cassation appeal.

The trial of two other suspects, whose cases had been separated from that of Fabien Neretsé, are in preparation.

World

François Mitterrand's archives on Rwanda will be able to be consulted by a researcher

Justice

Genocide in Rwanda: French justice confirms the dismissal of the attack against President Habyarimana

  • Belgium

  • Justice

  • Genocide in Rwanda

  • World

  • Rwanda

  • Genocide