UNTIL six months ago, Aimable Ntihemuka was a pillar of respectability, distributing seeds to local farmers from the town hall in Murama. Now he spends his days looking out on his former office from the barred windows of a prison.
Aimable, like virtually all of the other 351 men and nine women n the prison, is accused of participating in the genocide two years ago. They live in almost unbelievable conditions of overcrowding, discomfort and filth.
The men eat and sleep in a single area no larger than two classrooms - the prison is a converted school with no exercise area, no running water, no toilets, no facilities of any kind. Each man has space to sit on the hard concrete floor, no more.
This is justice Rwandan style, a hellish world where no one has been tried, yet all are permanently locked up. The prisoners at Murama laugh when I inquire whether they have mattresses or take exercise or lessons.
The government doesn't feed the prisoners, who relied on relatives trekking long distances to give them food until Concern started a prison feeding programme a year ago. Now they get one meal a day, usually maize, beans or sweet potatoes.
"Once we gave them tinned meat, but the local community complained. They said the murderers were getting better food than they were," says Innocent Ntawanga, the programme organiser.
Throughout Rwanda, 100,000 suspected genocidaires have been incarcerated for up to two years. Aimable says he and many others are innocent. Maybe he is right.
The regime excuses its failure to try the genocidaires by pointing out that 80 per cent of the country's judges, prosecutors and police officers died, disappeared or left two years ago.
Slowly, the justice system is being rebuilt. In September, 45() judges were appointed and 1,300 cases were reported ready for trial 800 of them for genocide offences.
Of the $30 million assistance sought by the government to rebuild the justice system, $15 million had been pledged.
Genocide laws have been in place since September. These provide for a graduated scale of offences and punishments. The death penalty is recommended for the leaders of the genocide, senior officials who "perpetuated or fostered" such crimes, "notorious murderers who "distinguished themselves" by their murders, and people who committed acts of sexual torture.
Not a single trial has started. The first case, that of Mr Georges Rutaganda, was postponed in September until next March on grounds of ill health. Mr Rutaganda, who is accused of playing a leading role in the genocide, asked to be allowed to travel to Europe for treatment, but this was refused.
The tribunal is based in Arusha, Tanzania, where its teams of prosecutors have fanned out across the world in search of the ringleaders of the genocide.
The leisurely pace of the tribunal's work is making the possibility of securing guilty verdicts more difficult. More than 150 witnesses have been assassinated this year.
The authorities seem powerless to prevent these murders, which are likely to increase now that many of the genocidaires are back in the country.
