Two men accused of key roles in Rwanda's 1994 massacre appeared in court today in the second Rwanda genocide trial held in Belgium.
Beer trader Etienne Nzabonimana and half brother Samuel Ndashyikirwa are accused of aiding and abetting the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Kibungo prefecture, southwest of the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
Some 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the region among the more than half-million slain in Rwanda in 1994.
"The trial is important because the slaughter in and around Kibungo was extremely bad. In one week time, tens of thousands of people were killed," said lawyer Luc Walleyn.
The two men were arrested in Belgium for trial under a universal jurisdiction law that allows prosecutors to try suspects for crimes committed outside the country.
Both men face up to life in prison if convicted of human rights violations. Proceedings opened today with jury selection, and the court is expected to hear from some 170 witnesses over the coming weeks, many flown over from Rwanda. The trial is expected to last seven weeks.
In 2001, a Belgian court convicted two Roman Catholic nuns, a former government minister and a university professor for their complicity in the atrocities.
The first trial was hailed as a milestone in international law; Belgium held the proceedings under a 1993 law that gave local courts jurisdiction over violations of the Geneva Convention on war crimes - no matter where they occurred.
The law since has been changed and restricted, but the two suspects in court today still fell under the new application of the rules.
Belgium has a special link with Rwanda since the central African nation was a former colonial territory of the European nation. Ten Belgian paratroopers were killed during the opening hours of the genocide in 1994.
AP