A Court in Stuttgart has begun hearing the case of two Rwandan individuals resident in Germany who are accused of directing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The two men are the President and Vice President of the Hutu rebel group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.
The trial is the first to be heard under the recent German Code of Crimes Against International Law, which enacts the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court into national law.
The two men are accused of 26 counts of crimes against humanity and 39 counts of war crimes. They are alleged to have directed these crimes by telephone and laptop communication, from January 2008 until their arrest in November 2009. The alleged crimes include mass killings and the recruitment of child soldiers. The trial is set to continue until 27 June 2011. To read the Human Rights Watch comment, please click here.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has sentenced Rwandan ex-army chief Augustin Bizimungu to 30 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide, finding that he had complete control over the men he commanded. An estimated 800,000 people were killed in the 100-day genocide.
Please click here to read the BBC news article. Please click here to read more about the ICTR.