A Rwandan former gynaecologist went on trial in France on Tuesday on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 massacres in his home country, in an investigation stretching back nearly three decades.
It is one of France’s longest-running cases, with Sosthene Munyemana appearing at the Assize Court in the French capital nearly 30 years after a complaint was filed against him in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux in 1995.
The 68-year-old former doctor, accused of organising torture and killings during the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, arrived late for the hearing scheduled to begin at 9:00 am (0800 GMT).
Munyemana, who denies the charges, faces life in prison if convicted. The trial, scheduled to last five weeks, will be recorded for historical archives.
It is the sixth such trial in France of an alleged participant in the massacres, in which around 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered over 100 dayss.
