This former senior official was “an essential cog without which the murderous machine could not have been implemented”, estimated the representatives of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat), demanding his conviction not only as an accomplice but also as ” main author” of the “crime of crimes”.
Laurent Bucyibaruta, prefect of Gikongoro between 1992 and July 1994, has been on trial since May 9 before the Paris Assize Court for genocide, complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity, charges he denies.
This region of southern Rwanda, where the Tutsi represented 17% of the population against 12% nationally, was one of the most affected by the genocide targeting this minority, which claimed at least 800,000 victims according to the UN.
The two general attorneys have retained his “complicity by aid or assistance” for the massacre of approximately 25,000 Tutsi refugees in the parish of Kibeho on April 14, 1994, where, “aware of the situation, he let it happen”.
For the killings of April 21 and 22, in a school under construction in Murambi, Cyanika and Kaduha, where some 75,000 people died, they considered that he should be considered as an “author” of genocide.
“He conscientiously carried out the directives given to him by the interim government” and then “passed them on to all the links in the administrative chain”, justified the general counsel.
“This man did not kill anyone” with his hands “but he has on him the blood of all the victims killed in Gikongoro”, summed up Advocate General Sophie Havard.
Defense lawyers will plead on Monday, before the verdict expected on Tuesday.
