HELSINKI, Finland — A former Rwandan Baptist pastor accused of genocide in the African country’s 1994 massacres is standing trial in Finland.
Francois Bazaramba, 58, is accused of planning, leading and carrying out killings of 5,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic group in the municipality of Nyakizu in April and May of 1994. His trial — Finland’s first for genocide — began Sept. 1 and is expected to last several months.
If convicted he could receive life in prison, which in Finland means a minimum of 12 years in jail.
The former pastor who led a youth center at Maranba Baptist Church claims he is innocent. His lawyer says Bazaramba was not in a position to have carried out the killings and claimed to have evidence that witnesses in Rwanda were tortured.
Family and church friends in Finland disbelieve the charges, describing him as a good man who helped other refugees fleeing Rwanda’s civil war.
Rwanda representatives claim that Bazaramba worked alongside Nyakizu’s ruthless mayor, Ladislas Ntaganzwa, a hard-line ethnic Hutu wanted for genocide, to secure weapons and lead patrols hunting down Tutsis.
The murders in Nyakizu came during a 10-day killing spree following the presumed assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
Authorities say more than 20,000 people were killed in the Nyakizu area.
Hutus slew Tutsis across Rwanda during the period, with anti-Tutsi sentiment inflamed by Hutu government officials and official broadcasts blaming Tutsis for the president’s death.
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