Brussels: Belgian Court Opens Case For Two Rwandan Genocide Suspects

By Jean d’Amour Mugabo

The court of assizes of Brussels has started proceedings in the trial of two presumed perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Pierre Basabose and Séraphin Twahirwa are accused of crimes of genocide and war crimes. At least 40 Rwandan witnesses will travel to Brussels in the coming weeks for the hearings that will kick off next Monday, October 9 and run until the beginning of December, 2023.

Born in 1947 in the Northern Rwanda’s Ruhengeri prefecture, Pierre Basabose is a former military officer, a businessman, a money changer, and a family friend of former Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana. As a member of the presidential guard, he used to be the driver of colonel Elie Sagatwa, the brother-in-law and private secretary to Habyarimana. In the 1980s and 1990s, he became rich by running a foreign exchange office in the Kigali commercial district. Basabose used part of his wealth to become the second biggest shareholder of the infamous Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) that incited Hutus to kill Tutsis. He fled Kigali in April 1994 and ended up in Belgium via Zaïre (now the DRC), Kenya, Kazakhstan and Germany.

Séraphin Twahirwa, alias “Kihebe loosely translated as terrorist,” was born on 10 December 1958 in the commune of Giciye in the Western Rwanda’s Gisenyi prefecture. He was an Interahamwe militia leader in the Gikondo sector of Kigali city and a cousin of Agathe Kanziga, the wife of former president Habyarimana. Like Basabose, Twahirwa lived close to the customs depot of MAGERWA. After the genocide, he fled to Zaïre and ended up in Belgium via Uganda. He currently holds no legal status of residence in Belgium.

Both suspects are charged with the crime of genocide, because of their political and ideological affiliations, their participation in arming and training an Interahamwe militia, their participation in drafting lists of persons to be killed and their presence at filtering roadblocks. They are also accused of war crimes because of their role in numerous killings and, in the case of Twahirwa, also rape.

Rwandan witnesses will travel to Brussels to testify before the court, in a coordinated logistical effort by the Belgian Justice department, the Embassy of Belgium in Kigali and the Rwandan Witness Protection Programme.

The Belgian Development Cooperation also contributes financially to the work of RCN Justice & Démocratie, a non-profit organization that will send two Rwandan journalists to Brussels to cover the assize trials. Their aim is to make sure that the news about the trials of Basabose and Twahirwa reaches local media outlets and radio stations in Rwanda, with the cooperation of the Pax Press media network.

 “It is important that justice is not only done, but also seen to be done”, commented Belgian ambassador to Rwanda Bert Versmessen on the start of the court proceedings in Brussels. “The legal cooperation between the prosecution in Rwanda and Belgium is a cornerstone of our relationship. It is driven by the desire that there should be no impunity for serious violations of international humanitarian law. Belgium’s penal code allows our judges to prosecute every person living in Belgium who committed crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, irrespective of whether these crimes took place on Belgian soil.”

Belgium was the first country outside of Rwanda to convict perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. In 2001, the trial against the “Four of Butare” in 2001 resulted in four convictions for war crimes. The last trial dates to December 2019, when Fabien Neretse also known as Nsabimana was sentenced for crimes of genocide and war crimes in Kigali and Mataba. In total, the Brussels court of assizes has so far organised five trials against nine persons.