Kagame's critics keep eye on SA trial

From News24

Johannesburg - Critics of Rwandan President Paul Kagame will be watching an attempted murder trial that started on Tuesday in South Africa for evidence the east African leader tried to have a former general killed.

Three Rwandans and three Tanzanians are accused of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges in the June 2010 shooting of Lieutenant General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, once Kagame's military chief.

They each pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at the start of a trial that required French, Swahili and Kinyarwanda translation, and that drew an observer for the Rwandan embassy and family members for the accused and the victim.

Since the Kagame and Nyamwasa fell out and the former general left for exile in South Africa last year, Nyamwasa has joined other Rwandans living abroad in accusing Kagame of crushing dissent and democracy after helping to end the 1994 genocide during which extremist Hutus killed more than 500 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.

Rwanda-South Africa relations strained

Rwandan dissidents accuse Kagame's government of being behind the attack on Nyamwasa, charges that it has angrily denied.

The case has strained Rwandan-South African relations, but officials here have refused to say whether they believe Nyamwasa was the target of an official assassination attempt.

Evidence on that point might form part of the trial.

Suspicions have fallen on Kagame's government elsewhere. It emerged in May that British police had warned some Rwandan exiles living in Britain that their lives were in danger, and the threat is believed to have emanated from the Rwandan government.

In Rwanda, human rights groups say opposition politicians, journalists and civil society activists have been subjected to crackdowns.

Suspect in suit and tie

Earlier this year, in a case Human Rights Watch said was politically motivated, Rwanda's High Court sentenced an opposition leader to four years in prison and fined three others opposition figures convicted of endangering national security, attempting to organise unauthorised protests and inciting ethnic divisions.

In the Nyamwasa case, the key suspect is Pascal Kanyandekwe, a Rwandan businessman and the only suspect to appear on Tuesday in a suit and tie.

In addition to charges stemming from the shooting, Kanyandekwe is accused of plotting to kill Nyamwasa while the general was hospitalised after the shooting.

Kanyandekwe and four men not linked to the shooting are to stand trial in the hospital plot later this month.

Kanyandekwe also is accused of bribery after two police officers said he offered them $1m to let them go when they arrested him in July 2010. Kanyandekwe allegedly left South Africa after the murder attempt on Nyamwasa and was arrested at Johannesburg's OR Tambo Airport upon his return.

The other two Rwandans accused are the general's driver and another had been a Rwandan soldier, according to prosecutors.

Rwanda wants accused home

In May, Nyamwasa and three other men who had once been top aides to Kagame were convicted in absentia by a Rwandan military court of disturbing public order, threatening state security, sectarianism and criminal conspiracy.

Rwanda has demanded the four be sent home to be imprisoned, but the countries where they have found refuge - South Africa and the United States - have made no move to hand them over.

While Nyamwasa portrays himself as a champion of democracy and is a victim in the case that opened Tuesday in a downtown Johannesburg court room, he and other senior Tutsis are accused of waging an extermination campaign against Hutus in the chaotic aftermath of Rwanda's genocide.

A Spanish judge in 2008 charged Nyamwasa and 39 other members of the Rwandan military with the mass killings of civilians after they seized power in Rwanda.

A UN report last year echoed the 2008 Spanish charges, accusing invading Rwandan troops of killing tens of thousands of Hutus in 1996 and 1997.

South African refugee and human rights groups have gone to court to try to have Nyamwasa's asylum status stripped because of the allegations, which the general denies.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the refugee and rights groups acknowledge it might not be safe for Nyamwasa to return to Rwanda. The groups suggest instead he be tried in South Africa.

- SAPA