Laurent Bucyibaruta
Paris Criminal Court has today concluded hearing in a Genocide case where former Prefet of Gikongoro Prefecture is accused of Participation in the massacre that cost lives to scores of Tutsi mainly at three parishes and two schools.
On July 12, the court gave Bucyibaruta the floor to give his conclusion in a case that lasted for more than two months, pending the verdict due in evening.
Bucyibaruta was too brief.
“I would like to tell the Genocide survivors that I never planned to abandon them into the hands of killers; I was always wondering; how can I help them. Those are the questions and the remorse that I have felt in the last 28 years,” he said.
“Sincerely speaking, I never wished sadness to the Tutsi of my prefecture. I never managed to help them, but neither did I seek to abandon them in the hands of killers.
Bucyibaruta said he never wanted to abandon the Tutsi, “never wished to see their sorrow, never wished to see the Tutsi go through atrocities.”
It is estimated that 100,000 Tutsi were massacred in Cyanika Parish, Kaduha Parish, Kibeho Parish and a nearby school of Marie Merci and mostly Murambi technical school in Nyamagabe.
Bucyibaruta is accused to have participated in gathering the Tutsi at these venues while knowing that they would be killed.
He is accused to have allowed road blocks to remain in operation while knowing that they targeted the Tutsi and to have declared that peace was restored during the Genocide.
The Tutsi who were in hideouts would have heard that message and came out only to be killed by Interahamwe.
He is accused to have been part of several genocide planning meetings.
During previous hearings, the Prosecution maintained that Bucyibaruta knew the plan of the Genocide but the suspect denied all these allegations, maintaining that he did not have any power to stop the Genocide which was being carried by the army, interahamwe and the gendarmes.
He said he was also fearing for his life, because Interahamwe had called him “icyitso” or accomplice of the Rwanda Patriotic Army(RPA) Inkotanyi which had attacked Rwanda since October 1994.
The same army stopped the Genocide after overthrowing the genocidal government.
More than one million Tutsi perished during the 1994 Genocide which was carried between April 7-July 4, 1994.
In this trial, many Genocide survivors who witnessed shed tears while giving testimonies of what they went through, sometimes sending the court to shock.
They said that all they needed from Paris court is justice.
