Eugene Rwamucyo

Eugene Rwamucyo (France)

Trial date: 2023/4 (To be confirmed)

In January 2023 the medical doctor Eugene Rwamucyo, 62, currently living in Belgium, had his final appeal against standing trial on genocide and war crimes charges turned down by the Court of Cassation in Paris. He will now have to face his accusers in the Assize court at a date to be announced but likely to be in late 2023/24. He is accused of committing the crimes while working at the University Centre for Public Health (CUSP) at the University Teaching hospital in the southern town of Butare (now Huye) in 1994.

Background

Rwamucyo also lectured at the National University of Rwanda. He is alleged to have been part of a notorious ‘war committee’ that planned the genocide against the Tutsi in Butare, killing Tutsi patients and students in the town. He is also suspected of having ordered the mass burial of Tutsis in Butare, including some victims who were still alive.

Rwamucyo fled to France after 1994. Between 2001 – 2007 he worked as a medical specialist in the country, despite having refugee status denied in 2002. In May 2008 he was employed in a city hospital in Maubeuge, northern France but was dismissed after the justice campaign group CPCR brought charges against him. In 2009 a Gacaca court in Rwanda sentenced Rwamucyo to life imprisonment in absentia for genocide.

On May 26, 2010, Rwamucyo was arrested in Sannois, north of Paris, when attending the funeral of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, the Rwandan Hutu hate-media director, who had been convicted by the ICTR for genocide and had died in jail. A French court then ruled Rwamucyo could not be extradited to Rwanda and set him free. In 2018 French investigators finally began to look in Rwamucyo’s case and on 17 April 2020 issued an indictment.

On 28 September 2022 – 15 years after the original CPCR complaint – Rwamucyo was informed that he will face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity before the Paris Court of Assizes. His appeal was rejected. His lawyer immediately announced that he would appeal to the Supreme Court, allowing his client to gain a few more months before being tried. On 9 January 2023 news agencies reported that this final appeal had failed and Rwamucyo would face trial in the not–too–distant future.

Given the expectation of yet more judicial delays, due to two already-scheduled genocide trials and appeal hearings, Rwamucyo’s case may not be heard in 2023. A trial date is still to be announced.

Unlike Bucyibarua and Kabuga, where old age and ill health has been a factor in their detention and trial, Rwamucyo is still comparatively young and there is still a real hope by survivors that he may face justice 28 years and counting for the horrific crimes for which he is accused.

January 2023: Rwamucyo starts a gofundme campaign to raise money for his legal expenses. In his explanation for why the funds are needed, he blames the fact he a political opponent of the RPF, who have slandered him and are responsible for his legal ‘suffering’. There is, of course, no mention of the genocide, no mention of his alleged crimes and complicity in the genocide, no mention or remorse for what happened in 1994. Just blame for the survivors organisation Ibuka. As ever, he is the victim and the survivors are now cast as the persecutors in what has become a well-versed tactic of reversing the reality of the affair. The list of those who have given to his crowdfunding ‘SOS’ are mostly anonymous apart from certain well-known figures from the families of Kabuga and Bagosora. After two months, he has reached 2,6000 Euros of his 10,000 euro target.