Emmanuel Nkunduwimye
A Witness in a trial of prosecution against Emmanuel Nkunduwimye alias Bomboko has told the Brussels Court of Assizes that the suspect was indistinguishable from Robert Kajuga and George Rutanganda respectively President and vice president of Interahamwe militia.
The militia is responsible for the killings of more than one million Tutsi during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.
Nkunduwimye is accused of Genocide crimes and war crimes committed in Nyarugenge, especially near and around AMGAR, a garage he allegedly co-owned with George Rutaganda.
A witness who was 18 year old during the Genocide, told the court that on April 8, Interahamwe stormed her family’s house, and ordered everyone to go out.
As they were trying to escape, their father was shot dead, and then her mother.
She run to save her life with two siblings who would connect with their seven others, all running for safety.
A neighbor who was a trader at that time saw them and was caught by compassion; he took them and dispatched them into several families so that they are not discovered and decimated.
In this process, the witness said, the family that was hosting us went to live with interahamwe-Kajuga, leaving us with their own child.
“Later on, we heard news that Kajuga would come to take us to Hotel Milles Collines where a number of Tutsi were hiding. Indeed, the following night, escorted by Interahamwe, he came, but instead of taking us to the hotel, he hid us in a different place,” the witness said.
“Instead of taking us at Milles Collines Hotel, Kajuga escorted us to a place called Photo Musa and hid us in a small cell,” the witness said.
Photo Musa was a business including photo studio in Kigali Business district. At this place, the witness and her siblings were joined by several other people brought on the order of Kajuga who was able to kill whoever he wanted, or save anyone he wanted.
Some militia Interahamwe used to come to watch on them, and those include Kajuga, Leopold, one Petit and the suspect himself.
She once heard something which she will never forget about Nkunduwimye, the suspect.
“That evening, a lady called on phone, her name was Florence. She pleaded Kajuga to come and save her the following morning, but in that same morning, Nkunduwimye came to us rejoicing that Florence’s family was exterminated,” said the witness.
“He said: that killer who dealt with them was really a killing expert,” Nkunduwimye would have said in the presence of Kajuga who was there, but said nothing whatsoever.
The witness told the court that indeed, Nkunduwimye is responsible for the death of Florence because he was talking about it, like in giving Kajuga a report of what he achieved.
The witness confirmed having seen Nkunduwimye, Kajuga, Petit and Leopold, another interahamwe going in the morning, and coming back in the evening.
Nkunduwimye was most of the times in military fatigue and armed with a pistol, sometimes with a riffle, according to the witness.
Came the time to go to Milles Collines after one person who knew these orphans accepted to pay the hotel bill for them. At the hotel, Paul Rusesabagina, the manager then, who was with the Gendarmes told them that they could not enter before presenting the national identity card.
But the witness did not have anything to call document, except a school ID. The person who had come with them watched as Rusesabagina was busy talking with the gendarmes and sneaked into the hotel with the children.
The well wisher would later pay Rusesabagina for the hotel.
This witness confirmed that the Genocide was planned, because the killers would tell the list of people that were killed during the day, and those that were on the target for the following day.
All this, she said, involved Nkunduwimye who was mostly in military fatigue. She said, that his garage was a plot of rape for the Tutsi women and it was adjacent to a roadblock where interahamwe would most of the time say “Please open for the president(Kajuga), he is coming.”
