Catholic priest stands trial for genocide

THE landmark trial of a Rwandan Catholic priest accused of supervising the massacre of 2,000 of his Tutsi parishioners during the central African country’s 1994 genocide opened in his absence.

The accused, 41-year-old Athanase Seromba, was among 44 detainees at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which sits in Tanzania, to boycott proceedings yesterday to protest plans to move detainees and case files to Rwanda.

It is the first time a Catholic cleric faces trial at the ICTR. Courts in Rwanda have convicted several priests - although two were later acquitted on appeal - and, in 2001, a Belgian court found two Catholic nuns guilty of playing a role in the genocide.

Seromba, who turned himself in two years ago, has pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him: genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

Seromba is alleged to have prepared and supervised the April 1994 massacre of more than 2,000 Tutsis who had sought refuge in his church in Nyange.

He is alleged to have ordered the church to be bulldozed. Hutu extremists quickly killed the survivors.

His lawyers will argue that although he was present at the time of the killings, he was powerless to intervene.

Some 800,000 people from Rwanda’s Tutsi minority were slaughtered in a campaign carefully orchestrated by the Hutu regime in 1994.

Seromba left Rwandaafter Tutsi rebels seized power in July of that year. He continues to enjoy the support of the Vatican.