BRUSSELS - Two nuns appeared in a Brussels court yesterday accused of murder during the Rwandan genocide in which more than 800,000 died.
The pair will be charged with participating in the murder of 5,000 Tutsis by Hutus extremists in Rwanda in 1994.
Yesterday's trial opening was an international legal landmark. Itis the first to make use of Belgian law, passed in 1993 and revised in 1999, which permits charges to be brought in Belgium for human rights crimes committed anywhere in the world.
Sister Gertrude, born in Rwanda 42 years ago as Consolata Mukangango, and Sister Maria Kisito, 36, born as Julienne Mukabutera, both denied charges of murder.
Vincent Ntezimana, 39, a university professor, and Alphonse Higaniro, a former industrialist and a former adviser to the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who also denied murder.
Sister Gertrude and Sister Maria Kisito are accused of having supplied petrol to the Interahamwe militia with which to set alight a health centre where the Tutsis were housed. They are also accused of giving up to the militia the families of some Tutsi nuns.
