The first witness to testify in the trial of a Rwandan genocide suspect told a German court on Wednesday how he was arbitrarily imprisoned and threatened by the defendant in the run up to the mass killing of ethnic Tutsis by Hutus.

The case against Onesphore Rwabukombe, a Hutu former mayor of the Mavumba, a in north-eastern Rwanda, is being heard in a Frankfurt court. Rwabukombe was arrested in Germany, where he has lived since 2002, and brought to trial in January under a new law that authorizes prosecution of genocide suspects from any part of the world.

The witness, a 47-year-old public prosecutor who cannot be named in Germany, said that when violence erupted in Rwanda in late 1990s, he was arrested although he had committed no crime and detained for
several months.

At one point during the detention, he told the court, Rwabukombe took the safety catch off a rifle and aimed it at him. "The only reason he did not shoot me was that a friend went and stood between us," the witness said. He told the court that he had left Rwanda after his release from detention in March 1991 and had not been present during the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

Rwabukombe is accused of having given orders that led to the death of 3,730 people, mainly of Tutsis who had taken refuge in a church.

The witness is one of 17 witnesses from Rwanda who have been called to testify in Frankfurt.

Source: DPA