BBC News Online: World: Africa

Rwandan clergyman at international crimes tribunal

A Rwandan clergyman extradited from the United States to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity has pleaded not guilty to involvement in the 1994 massacres in Rwanda.

The Seventh Day Adventist pastor, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who is seventy-six, rejected all the charges against him at the international criminal tribunal in the Tanzanian town of Arusha.

United Nations prosecutors say he actively took part in the killings of thousands of Tutsis by Hutu extremists including the massacre of a large group of men, women and children that he had earlier encouraged to seek refuge in his church. Before his extradition, Mr Ntakirutimana had been under arrest in the USA for four years.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service