A former head of the Rwandan army, regarded as one of the most senior suspects facing trial in the country's 1994 genocide, pleaded not guilty before a United Nations tribunal today.
Mr Augustin Bizimungu, who led the army during massacres in which 800,000 people were killed over 100 days, appeared visibly angry as he responded to the charges that he conspired with other officers to exterminate Rwanda's ethnic Tutsi minority.
Mr Bizimungu, who was arrested in Angola last week, faces 10 counts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity which he allegedly committed during the April to July massacres in the tiny central African country.
He is accused along with other officers of ordering and encouraging the killings of Tutsis as part of a plot to ensure that a government dominated by the Hutu majority could remain in power.
He is accused of distributing weapons to militiamen, and publicly stating in February 1994 that if Tutsi-led rebels attacked Rwanda again, he would not want to see any Tutsi alive in his sector of operations.
He is jointly indicted with General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, former chief of the national police; Major Protais Mpiranya, commander of the presidential guard battalion; Major Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, commander of the reconnaissance battalion in the Rwandan army; and Captain Innocent Sagahutu, second in command in the reconnaissance battalion.