Rwandan tea industry chief surrenders to UN tribunal on genocide charges

The former director-general of the organization controlling Rwanda’s tea industry today surrendered to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal on charges of genocide, conspiracy with tea factory employees to commit the crime, and complicity in killing people in the north-west of the country in 1994.

Michel Bagaragaza “is charged with ordering his subordinates and with instigating, aiding and abetting others over whom he did not have authority to kill hundreds of Tutsi civilians who sought refuge on Kesho Hill near a tea factory in Rubaya and in Nyundo Cathedral, both in Gisenyi Prefecture,” the Tribunal said.

Gisenyi Prefecture, Mr. Bagaragaza’s home district, is near the northern shore of Lake Kivu and Rwanda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He was alleged to have helped establish, fund, train and arm the Hutu-dominated rebel Interahamwe militia to carry out attacks on Tutsi civilians and to have been the honorary president of a local Interahamwe unit. He also allegedly ordered tea factory employees to provide the Interahamwe with vehicle fuel, arms and ammunition from a stockpile at the factory and ordered them to help kill hundreds of Tutsis, ICTR said.

“The indictment of Michel Bagaragaza resulted from our investigation of the ‘Akazu,’ the group around the former Rwandan President which exercised great power in business and government in the years leading up to 1994,” ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow said.

“His indictment is among the final eight indictments that the Office of the Prosecutor has filed in cases alleging genocide. His surrender today is thus an important step in the fulfillment of the Tribunal’s Completion Strategy,” he added.