A Franco-Rwandan tried in Paris for complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity said Monday, December 13, persecuted for his membership in the Rwandan opposition, once again denying having transported killers to massacres.
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Claude Muhayimana, 60, is a member of the Rwandan National Congress (RNC), an opposition party to the Paul Kagame regime. "
Everything that happens to me today is due to my commitment within the RNC opposition
", he blurted out, after being invited by the president of the Assize Court to make a statement. statement, before the start of his questioning. "
The RNC was founded in December 2010. In February 2011, the first trip of party members outside Washington, it is in Rouen
", declared the accused, calmly but moved. "
We organized demonstrations in Rouen which did not give a good image of the Rwandan government
", insisted the accused,targeted by a complaint from the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR) dating from 2013.
"I tried to save innocent people"
The genocide against the Tutsi minority, orchestrated by the genocidal Hutu regime, left more than 800,000 dead between April and July 1994 in Rwanda.
Claude Muhayimana, 60, a former driver from Kibuye (west), is accused of having "
knowingly helped
" soldiers and militiamen by ensuring their transport to massacre sites in the west of the country in 1994. "
Since then for weeks, I heard a lot of people accuse me of having participated in the massacres, that people had seen me
”with so and so,“ these
are things that are foreign to me
”, he said. declared.
Regarding the accusations of transporting the killers, "
I would like to say that I was at home and that I was sick
", he reaffirmed, despite the statements of witnesses attesting to having seen him providing these transportations. Claude Muhayimana, who had not spoken since the start of the trial at the end of November, explained that he grew up until 1994 "
without distinguishing between Hutu and Tutsi
". "
Among my friends, 90% were Tutsi,
" he said, in a clear and confident voice, citing a long list of names. Claude Muhayimana married a woman of Tutsi origin. The couple are now separated.
During weeks of witness interviews, several testified that the couple had hidden Tutsi in their house, and in particular paid the killers in order to save these people from certain death.
"
I took this risk to try to save the innocent people who were chased away and today I am in court and it is I who are accused of being genocidal?
», Launched Claude Muhayimana, who is a roadmender in the French city of Rouen (north-west).
He faces life imprisonment.
The verdict is expected Thursday.