'Hate radio' journalist confesses

The 1994 genocide left 800,000 dead

A European former journalist with Rwanda's notorious "hate radio" station has pleaded guilty to inciting killings during the 1994 genocide.

These are events which I regret, but they are the reality and I decided to admit them

Georges Omar Ruggiu

The journalist, Georges Omar Ruggiu - a Belgian citizen of Italian descent - is the only non-Rwandan to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The independent Hirondelle news agency reported that he "admitted having directly and publicly incited murders and caused serious attacks on the physical and/or mental well-being of members of the Tutsi population with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, an ethnic or racial group."

The journalist worked for Radio et Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) in Kigali which during the war was referred to as Hate Radio.

About 800,000 people were killed in the Rwandan genocide which began in April 1994.

'Responsible and culpable'

According to the charges levelled against Mr Ruggiu, the radio station was used to preach "the ideology and plans of Hutu extremists in Rwanda."

He admitted to the tribunal that "certain people were killed in Rwanda in 1994 and that I was responsible and culpable."

"These are events which I regret, but they are the reality and I decided to admit them," Mr Ruggiu told the court, which sits in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.

"I admit that it was indeed a genocide and that unfortunately I took part in it," he said.

Mr Ruggiu's case is the first in which an international court tries a suspect who is not a citizen of the country in which the alleged crimes were committed.

Radio Mille Collines was launched in 1993, backed by family members of the Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana - whose death in a plane crash triggered the genocide.