Throughout Twagirayezu's trial, following extradition from Denmark late in 2018, eyewitnesses vouched that he was a participant in acts of Genocide as a member of the notorious Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) political party at the height of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
The 56-year-old Twagirayezu, formerly a teacher in a vocational school in Rubavu District is said to have participated in several killings in Gisenyi town between April 7 and April 9, 1994.
These massacres, in which the suspect is said to have been a ringleader, took place mainly between the areas of Busasamana and Gacamena. There, the Tutsi were slaughtered in thousands.
Prosecution appealed his acquittal relying on the significant evidence that was overlooked in the initial trial.
On January 11, 2024, Presiding Judge Timothee Kanyegeri, of the Nyanza-based High Court Chamber for International Crimes (HCCIC), ruled that there wasn't sufficient evidence to prove Twagirayezu's role in the crimes he is accused of.
During the hearing of the case, witnesses for Prosecution included one Etienne Gasenge, himself a participant in the genocide at the same time and place (as he testified) with Twagirayezu.
Gasenge said that on the seventh of April, they started the killings in Mudende and that on the following day, they proceeded to Busasamana.
The witness said that Twagirayezu was with them as they dumped bodies in a pit, and that he (Twagirayezu) had an R4 gun.
Another witness who is a survivor, Jean Ruzibiza, said that he saw the suspect, on April 8, at a school in Mudende where many had fled the massacres.
Ruzibiza said Twagirayezu was among the Interahamwe militias that attacked the school that day, and that he had a gun, and a spiked club of the kind the militias used as one of the crudest, most sadistic killing instruments.
Another witness, code-named DTA, said that on April 10, he saw Twagirayezu seemingly asking for the identity documents (which in those days was for the purpose of establishing an individual's ethnicity) of two women, and one young man who were trying to cross into the Congo, then Zaire.
DTA testified that when the three people couldn't produce their documents, the defendant killed them on the spot. The witness continued that Interahamwe dumped the bodies of the victims in a pit under an avocado tree, in a place called Munyazogeye.
Two of the judges, including presiding judge Kanyegeri, and Fidele Nsanzimana, did not find this, and similar evidence of enough preponderance to convict Wenceslas Twagirayezu.
Subsequently, they chose to acquit him on grounds that the Prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the suspect actually was in Gisenyi at the time of the crimes he is accused of.
The presiding judge said court reached its decision based on, among other things, documents the suspect produced, claiming they showed he was in DRC on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of April, 1994. Additionally, the judges said, they 'identified inconsistencies in several testimonies from different witnesses.'
When Twagiramungu was seeking asylum in Denmark years ago, he told immigration officers in the European country that between January, and July 1994 he was in Gisenyi. 'He (the defendant) only started making claims that he was in DRC when prosecutors were questioning him in 2018.
Sam K Nkurunziza
Source : https://en.igihe.com/news/article/twagirayezu-handed-20-years-prison-sentence-for-genocide
