The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced a former close associate of the Habyarimana regime to eight years in prison last week, after he pleaded guilty to complicity in genocide. 

By Thierry Cruvellier

Michel Bagaragaza had cooperated with the ICTR prosecutor since 2002 in the hope of having the case heard before a court in Europe where he might receive a more favourable outcome. However, although the tribunal agreed to move his case to a European country, it was prevented from doing so.

In February 2006, in order to expedite the case, the prosecutor asked for Bagaragaza to be tried in Norway where he would face a maximum sentence of twenty years imprisonment if he were found guilty. Due importance would be given to his confession, and clear rules on early release would apply. However, the ICTR judges refused Bagaragaza’s transfer to Norway because under Norwegian law he couldn’t be prosecuted for crimes of genocide committed in 1994. It had been hoped that the Netherlands would then step in. But in July 2007, a Dutch court ruled that it too had no jurisdiction over crimes of genocide committed before 2003. Three weeks later, the ICTR had to rescind its order to transfer Bagaragaza to The Hague.

Although the 64-year-old had confessed to his crimes during dozens of hours of interviews, he could no longer be sure of getting anything in return. The ICTR prosecutor stated that he would ask for the case to be transferred to Rwanda, unless Bagaragaza entered a guilty plea.

In March 2009 a tenacious new lawyer, Wayne Jordash, joined Bagaragaza’s defence team. Jordash had worked on several international tribunals, including at the ICTR. He knew that the best he could do for his new client was to reach an agreement with the prosecutor. But the Bagaragaza case illustrates the limits and paradoxes faced by an international court when trying to unravel Rwanda’s history.

In 1994, Bagaragaza was the head of OCIR-Thé, a lucrative parastatal controlling Rwanda’s national tea production. He was from the same region as then president, Juvénal Habyarimana, and described himself as a member of the “large akazu”, a name given to the group of people who were actually running Rwanda at the time. At the centre of the akazu were Habyarimana’s wife and her three brothers, including Protais Zigiranyirazo, also know as “Z”.

It was because of Bagaragaza’s relationship with Z and other powerful members of the regime that he caught the interest of the Office of the Prosecutor. Bagaragaza said he knew who gave the order to kill several prominent members of the opposition in the early hours of April 7th, 1994. These murders were the first act of the mass killing campaign that engulfed Rwanda over the following three months and it has never been clear who ordered them. The information was so sensitive that it took two and a half years for Bagaragaza to reveal it to the prosecutor.

Bagaragaza claimed that his good friend Pasteur Musabe, a powerful businessman close to Habyarimana’s family, was called by Z early in the morning on April 7th and asked to come to the presidential residence with money. There, Musabe said, Z ordered the presidential guard to go and kill the leaders of the opposition. When Musabe first told Bagaragaza about what he saw and heard on that day, another person was present, Juvénal Uwilingiyimana. In February 1999, Musabe was murdered in Cameroon. In November 2005, Uwilingiyimana was also found dead in a canal in Belgium, where he’d been meeting with the ICTR Prosecutor.

Bagaragaza twice testified in Arusha against the once feared “Mister Z”. But the judges did not accept his evidence as it was deemed hearsay and nobody could corroborate it. From a legal point of view, the matter was clear. From a historical point of view, however, Bagaragaza’s allegation could possibly shed light on how events unfolded.