FONDATION HIRONDELLE - HIRONDELLE PRESS AGENCY IN ARUSHA
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR RWANDA
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ICTR/BAGARAGAZA

INFLUENTIAL MEMBER OF FORMER PRESIDENT’S ENTOURAGE SURRENDERS TO UN TRIBUNAL

Arusha, August 17th, 2005 (FH) - The former head of the Rwandan tea industry who surrendered this week to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), was until 1994 an influential member of former President Juvenal Habyarimana’s inner clan.

According to a book published last month by French sociologist Andre Guichaoua, Michel Bagaragaza was a “key element of the Akazu”, Habyarimana’s inner circle, which is accused of planning and carrying out the genocide.

60-year old Bagaragaza, just like the former president, is a native of Gisenyi (northern Rwanda). In 1988, he was appointed to head the vast network of the tea industry in Rwanda.

In this position, he controlled all tea plantations and factories employing thousands of people all over the country. He has pleaded not guilty to genocide charges.

In his book, Guichaoua underlines the fact that tea was one of the most important industrial enterprises which, from 1992, were put “under the control of the president’s family and its allies”.

“The indictment of Michel Bagaragaza resulted from our investigation of the Akazu, the group around the former Rwandan President which exercised great power in business and government in the years leading up to 1994”, said Hassan Bubacar Jallow, Prosecutor of the ICTR.

Bagaragaza was also a member of the prefectoral committee of the MRND (Mouvement républicain national pour la démocratie et le développement, former ruling party) in Gisenyi.

According to the indictment, during the 1994 genocide, Bagaragaza “aided and abetted” killers by providing them with transportation using vehicles belonging to the tea factories, most of them in Gisenyi.

The indictment dated July 28, 2005 particularly dwells on the “criminal responsibility as a superior”. It states that the accused was “responsible for the crimes committed by his subordinates.

According to Stephen Rapp, chief of prosecutions at the ICTR, Bagaragaza surrendered to under a “compromise arrangement”. He neither explained the nature of the arrangement nor the country from which the former Hutu official had surrendered.

Bagaragaza had been living in exile in the Kenyan capital Nairobi ever since the former rebels now in power in Kigali, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), took over power.

Several other suspects have given themselves up to the ICTR, among them, Vincent Rutaganira, a former municipal Councillor who pleaded guilty.

Another was Catholic priest Athanase Seromba, who is currently on trial. He surrendered from Italy where he had been performing his priestly duties. It is not clear whether his surrender was voluntary or whether the Catholic Church played a hand in persuading him.

The last person to be arrested was Gaspard Kanyarukiga who made his initial appearance at the ICTR July 2004.

In surrendering, Michel Bagaragaza becomes the first member of former President Juvenal Habyarimana’s inner circle to do so.

KN/ER/PB/AT

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