Rwanda minister in genocide court

Gacaca courts are being held in villages around Rwanda

Rwanda's defence minister has appeared before a traditional court and denied charges relating to the 1994 genocide.

Gen Marcel Gatsinzi is accused of failing to stop his troops carrying out killings while he briefly led the armed forces at the start of the genocide.

He insisted he was innocent and said one of his first orders had been to stop the killing of civilians.

More than 3,000 people turned up for the "gacaca" or village court, held in the southern Butare province.

Such courts have been set up to give local Rwandans a chance to challenge some of the hundreds of thousands of people accused of peripheral involvement in the genocide.

Gen Gatsinzi, a Hutu, is the highest-ranking member of the government to appear before such a court.

Serious cases are being considered by the UN War Crimes Tribunal in Arusha.

'Mistrusted official'

Witnesses and survivors said Gen Gatsinzi should take responsibility for failing to stop his forces from participating in the massacres at the start of the 1994 genocide.

He is not accused of having a direct role in the killings.

But he told the panel of judges at the hearing in the Huye football stadium he had no involvement in the genocide.

He said he was mistrusted by the then government, which regarded him as an accomplice of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front.

He was transferred out his post within days of the genocide starting, he said.

"I didn't participate in the genocide, and I didn't support the killers. Even my wife, she is a Tutsi," he told the court.

The hearing was adjourned to an undetermined date, said Reuters news agency.