afrol News, 8 November - The man who served briefly as interim Rwandan Interior Minister during the peak months of the 1994 genocide and is accused of helping to coordinate the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus turned himself in today to the UN's criminal tribunal in Tanzania, bringing the number arrested to 72.

Calixte Kalimanzira, 52, has been transferred to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania, and is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, and with direct and public incitement to commit genocide, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said.

In April and May, when he was Rwanda's interim Interior Minister, he is alleged to have coordinated efforts to begin the killings from 6 April and 19 April in Butare prefecture, an area where Tutsis had not previously been subject to widespread attack.

Mr Kalimanzira is specifically charged with making inflammatory speeches that called for the elimination of all Tutsis, including women, children and the elderly, distributing weapons to be used against Tutsis, supervising the killings of thousands of Tutsis at their places of refuge and personally beating a number of Tutsis to death.

With the 100-day genocide being orchestrated by the Hutu government then in power, members of the army and the Interahamwe Hutu militia led the massacre of an estimated 900,000 of minority Tutsis, as well as Hutu political moderates. The killings ended when Tutsi-led rebels, under President Paul Kagame, took over the government of the former Belgian colony.

The UN Security Council set up the ICTR in November 1994. It has so far convicted 22 people, acquitted three and released two conditionally. Seven of the 22 convictions are being appealed. 72 persons accused of genocide crimes have so far been arrested.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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