The long-overdue trial of Claude Muhayimana, a Genocide suspect who obtained French nationality, in 2010, is likely to begin in September this year according to France-based Collectif des parties civiles pour le Rwanda (CPCR) which works to see Genocide suspects living in France brought to book.
When it happens, the CPCR will be happy that the suspect who it says was brought before the Paris Assize Court on November 9, 2017, "must finally be held accountable to the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
The CPCR said in a statement that the Rwandan should be tried for "complicity in genocide" for having regularly transported Interahamwe to the hills of Karongi and Bisesero.
The group noted that despite numerous setbacks in its pursuit for justice in Genocide trials in France, it is not giving up.
"We must continue to fight, despite the discouragement. We will never tolerate that those who committed crimes against humanity and who live in peace on French soil can evade justice,” Alain Gauthier, President of CPCR, stated.
Muhayimana, previously a driver at a hotel in western Rwanda, is accused of transporting Interahamwe militia to sites where massacres were carried out.
According to reports, his trial, the third such trial in France – is scheduled to run from September 29 to October 23.
The other two trials that have taken place in France include that of Pascal Simbikangwa, a former officer in the presidential guard who was given a 25-year sentence in 2014. He appealed and lost.
In 2016, Octavien Ngenzi and Tito Barahira, two former mayors in eastern Rwanda, were given life sentences. Last October, a French court upheld the life sentence imposed on the two, three years earlier after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) Executive Secretary Jean-Damascène Bizimana said Muhayimana was one of the leading Interahamwe militia leaders in the city of Kibuye who played a big role, as a driver, while transporting killers to places where they massacred people during the Genocide.
Besides transporting the killers, the accused also killed people, Bizimana said.
Bizimana said: "He especially participated in the massacre of the Tutsi in the Saint-Jean compound in the city of Kibuye and in Gatwaro stadium. He collaborated closely with the then prefect of the area, Clément Kayishema.”
The atrocities at this stadium were ordered by Clément Kayishema, the former prefect of what was then known as Kibuye Prefecture. Kayishema was tried and convicted by a UN court, and died in 2016 in a prison in Mali, where he was serving a life sentence.
Muhayimana faces charges of complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity through aiding and assisting such crimes.
In 2014, he was arrested in the northern city of Rouen after a year-long investigation triggered by a complaint by the CPCR.