On 9 May, four years after the trial of the "Butare four", Belgium reopened the Rwandan genocide file with the trial of two businessmen from Kibungo, Étienne Nzabonimana and Samuel Ndashikirwa. Other proceedings are expected to follow, including the long-awaited trial of Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, suspected of involvement in the death of ten Belgian peacekeepers in Kigali on 7 April 1994. But the most secret and spectacular of all is the pending trial of a certain Ephrem Nkezabera, former banker and a member of the national committee of the Interahamwe militia.
The story dates back to November 1996, when investigators at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) made contact with Dieudonné Niyitegeka in Nairobi. Niyitegeka was former national treasurer of the Interahamwe, the youth movement of President Habyarimana\'s MRND party and the main militia that carried out the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda between April and June 1994. Operating from exile in Kenya, Niyitegeka was to become the most important informer for the ICTR\'s office of the prosecutor. His collaboration led to the July 1997 important wave of arrests of highlevel Rwandan suspects who had taken refuge in Kenya, including former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda. As Kambanda later recorded, Niyitegeka "served as an informer to identify the residences of different people arrested in the course of the operation. After this, the same office of the prosecutor organized his escape towards West Africa, either to Togo or Benin, and later his emigration to Canada."

But the former treasurer was not the only ex-Interahamwe to become an ardent helper of the UN tribunal in Tanzania. Phénéas Ruhumuliza, first vice-president of the militia, also served as an informer before dying of an illness in West Africa, where he had been "ex-filtrated" by the international prosecutor. Omar Serushago, one of the five Interahamwe leaders in the western region of Gisenyi, was also persuaded to turn informer by the ICTR investigators as early as 1997. Events did not go as well for him as for Niyitegeka, who managed to avoid all criminal charges. The prosecutor urgently needed Serushago\'s testimony to support the evidence against top leaders of the Rwandan regime. Since Serushago admitted killing at least four people and ordering the death of thirty others, Serushago had to be tried first in order to become a credible witness. He thus signed an agreement with the prosecutor\'s office and in February 1999 the ICTR found him guilty of genocide and sentenced him to fifteen years\' imprisonment. Since then, Serushago has appeared as a prosecution witness in the media trial and the trial of four former high-ranking officers, grouped around colonel Théoneste Bagosora.

Similar OTP strategy for Serushago and Nkezabera

The case of Ephrem Nkezabera followed a similar pattern. In July 2004, a month after taking him into custody, the Belgian courts officially announced Nkezabera\'s arrest. "We asked the Belgian authorities to pursue the suspect and they kindly agreed to do so," ICTR prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow informed the news agency Hirondelle on 30 July. This was delicately put, but in fact masked a carefully orchestrated strategy.

Since at least 1998, Nkezabera - introduced by his friend Niyitegeka - had been part of a group of former Interahamwe who acted as informers for the ICTR prosecutor. Forty hours of taped interviews, amounting to 1,800 pages in the international prosecutor\'s archives testify to this cooperation. To support his evidence in proceedings against the main military and political leaders of the former Rwandan government, the prosecutor may need a deposition from the former insider. But, as with the case of Serushago six years ago, Nkezabera will first have to stand trial.

Demonstrating careful respect for the confidentiality of the case, Nkezabera\'s Belgian lawyer and the federal prosecutor in charge of the case in Brussels both refused to comment on the charges. However, according to information from the Arusha tribunal, the accused - former head of a Rwandan bank and chairman of the commission on economic and financial affairs for the Interahamwe national committee - admits to having encouraged and congratulated militia at roadblocks after 7 April 1994, and of having delivered arms to them on 11 and 12 April. He denies having killed anybody, but admits that two people were killed in front of him by individuals from his immediate circle. This confession came some time in April 2002.

Before being detained in Belgium, Nkezabera signed an agreement with the ICTR prosecutor, which included the classic arrangement to relocate his family. The Belgian courts are not bound by this agreement. But being tried in Belgium may contain an important advantage for Nkezabera: gaining early release in Belgium is infinitely more likely than before the Arusha tribunal, which to this day has never granted early release. After pleading guilty and cooperating with the prosecution, he can reasonably expect to serve only half of his sentence in Belgium. No ICTR convict can hope for the same: Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, now in his eighties, who was sentenced to ten years for genocide, remains in prison after eight years behind bars. The Interahamwe leader\'s legal fate

Ephrem Nkezabera\'s trial in Belgium could well lift the curtain on the extraordinary legal fate of the Interahamwe leadership. Of the five key leaders, two are dead (president Robert Kajuga, and first vice-president Phénéas Ruhumuliza), one has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) (second vice-president Georges Rutaganda), one has been given a change of identity and special protection in Canada (treasurer Dieudonné Niyitegeka) and the fifth is living in Europe, avoiding justice through lack of evidence and refusing all collaboration (secretary general Eugène Mbarushimana).
To this inner circle may be added six commission chairmen, including Nkezabera. One of these, Alphonse Kanimba, died in the first days of the war of April 1994. No information is available on two others, Jean- Pierre Sebaneti and Bernard Maniragaba. A fifth, Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka, was arrested in May 2004 in the USA where he is currently facing charges for making false declarations to immigration officials. The sixth, Joseph Serugendo, currently a refugee in West Africa, has one thing in common with Nkezabera: he was a member of the Interahamwe leadership at the same time as being a director of Radio des Milles Collines (RTLM). But unlike the former banker, Serugendo has never been an ICTR informer or been indicted by the international tribunal - not even through the intermediary of a national court.