March 24, 2000
A former minister in the Rwandan Government accused of personal involvement in the 1994 genocide today pleaded not guilty at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda at Arusha, Tanzania. Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, who was the Minister for Culture and Higher Education, is accused of supervising killings of minority Tutsis in the Gikomero commune in the Kigali-Rural prefecture, where he had family ties. He allegedly handed out firearms, grenades and machetes to Hutu militia. He is also accused of personally leading attacks by government soldiers and interahamwe militia against Tutsi refugees in the prefecture, "notably at a church and an adjoining school," according to a tribunal statement.
Kamuhanda entered his not guilty plea during an initial appearance before the tribunal's Judge Yakov Ostrovsky. On one occasion, the statement added, Kamuhanda directed militia into the courtyard of a school compound and gave the order to attack. "Several thousand people were killed." The former Rwandan minister was first arrested in France last year and transferred to Arusha earlier this month.
