A French court on Tuesday begins hearing the landmark trial of a former Rwandan army captain charged with complicity in the 1994 genocide that left 800,000 people dead, reports FRANCE 24.
Initially arrested for carrying fake travel documents in the French islands known collectively as Mayotte in 2008, Captain Pascal Simbikangwa, who is accused of involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda, will appear in a Paris court on February 4.
It is the first time in France that someone allegedly linked to the massacre of nearly 800,000 mainly Tutsi men, women and children will have to appear before a jury.
Since 1996, French courts have had the right to issue sentences for criminal acts committed abroad if the presumed criminal is present on French soil. But, in 2004, France was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for the slowness of the legal procedures targeting perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. Some see that “slowness” as symptomatic of France’s resistance to re-opening old wounds.
A former supporter of the Hutu regime that perpetrated the Rwandan genocide, France has long been accused of providing a safe haven for those who committed atrocities in the African state.
Two decades after the massacres, the French legal system is finally pulling out all the stops.
The trial is expected to last eight weeks, with 53 witnesses testifying. The proceedings will be filmed and broadcast on big screens in various rooms throughout the court house.
Trials of other individuals thought to have been involved in the genocide could take place in France in the coming years.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.