Rwanda suspect pleads not guilty

Mr Nizeyimana had been on the run for 15 years

One of the most wanted suspects in Rwanda's 1994 genocide has pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Idelphonse Nizeyimana entered his plea at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania.

He was an intelligence chief at the time of the genocide, in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

Mr Nizeyimana is accused of organising the killing of thousands, including the former Tutsi queen.

He was arrested last week in Uganda and later extradited for trial at the UN-backed tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.

False documents

On Wednesday, Mr Nizeyimana, aged 46, pleaded not guilty to the charges of genocide, complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

Queen Rosalie Gicanda (L) was revered by many Tutsis

Mr Nizeyimana was head of intelligence and military operations at Rwanda's elite military training school, the ESO, during the genocide.

The lengthy indictment says he elaborated, adhered to and executed a plan to wipe out the Tutsis - the minority in a country ruled by a Hutu government for more than three decades.

He is accused of setting up special military units to help carry out the slaughter.

One of these units is believed to have killed Queen Rosalie Gicanda, widow of King Mutara III who died in 1959 shortly before the country became a republic.

Like an estimated two million Rwandan Hutus, Mr Nizeyimana fled after the genocide and took refuge in neighbouring DR Congo.

He had been on the run for 15 years until his arrest in a modest hotel in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Ugandan police said he had crossed the border from DR Congo last week, and was heading for Kenya with false travel documents.