The priest is accused of having provided food to the militiamen who killed Tutsi in his church – Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP
A Rwandan priest, refugee and naturalized French, was indicted and imprisoned Wednesday, accused, among other things, of having “provided food to the militiamen” who massacred Tutsis in his church in Rwanda in 1994, which he disputes , learned this Friday from the public prosecutor.
Marcel Hitayezu, born in 1956, was indicted, in particular for “genocide” and “complicity in crimes against humanity”, by a specialized investigating judge of the Paris court, according to the national anti-terrorism prosecution (Pnat), also responsible for cases of crimes against humanity.
Rwanda extradition request
He was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Montlieu-la-Garde (Charente-Maritime), according to a source close to the investigation. “Priest of the parish of Mubuga (south) in Rwanda in 1994, Marcel H. is accused of having”, in April 1994, “deprived of food and water from the Tutsis who took refuge in his church” and ‘having “provided food to the Interahamwe militiamen who attacked the Tutsi refugees” in the building, the Pnat said in a statement.
“Marcel H. disputed these facts during his initial examination before the examining magistrate”, added the public prosecutor. This priest had been targeted by a request for extradition from Rwanda, which the Court of Cassation had definitively rejected in October 2016, as was the case for all the suspects of participation in the genocide claimed by Kigali.
Judicial information
The genocide left more than 800,000 dead according to the UN, mainly Tutsis exterminated between April and July 1994. To examine the accusations against Marcel Hitayzu, the French justice opened a judicial investigation three years later, on July 26, 2019. “He was until Wednesday vicar of the parish priest of a parish in Montlieu-la-Garde,” said the diocese of La Rochelle.
According to the daily The cross, the priest, after three years spent in refugee camps in eastern Congo, “arrived between 1998 and 1999” in this diocese and “refugee status (had) been granted to him on January 26, 2011”.
“This is excellent news,” responded Alain Gauthier. For this co-founder of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), civil party in this case, “the Church must question itself on how to give responsibilities to people who are suspected of having participated in the genocide”. Another priest who took refuge in France, Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, was accused of having played a role in the massacres of 1994. He was dismissed in 2015, which became final in 2019.