Jacques Mungwarere, 39, a Rwandan genocide fugitive has appeared before a judge today at a Canadian court.
He is the second Rwandan to be prosecuted under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, introduced in 2000 and allows for prosecution no matter where or when an alleged war crime may have been committed.
A large group of potential jurors in Ottawa were abruptly sent home today after Mungwarere did an about-face, electing to be tried by a judge alone at his war crimes trial.
The first person prosecuted under the act is Desire Munyaneza, who wassentenced to life in prison in 2009.
The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) arrested Mungwarere in 2009 in Windsor, Ont. A million ethnic Tutsis were killed in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi that lasted over a hundred days.
Mungwarere is a former schoolteacher who led or participated in mass killings of civilians, including notorious massacres in two churches and a hospital in Kibuye.
He was tracked in early 2003 after being recognised by a childhood friend from Rwanda on a city bus in Windsor, where he settled after immigrating to Canada in 1998.
Mungwarere’s case was set to be relatively unique among war crimes trials in that he had chosen to have his case heard before both a judge and a jury. War crimes cases are almost exclusively presided over by judges.
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