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| |  | | Samuel Imanishimwe | | | context : | Rwanda  | | judgement place : | ICTR (Rwanda) | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Sentenced to 27 years imprisonment by the First Chamber of the ICTR; sentence reduced on appeal to 12 years imprisonment | | position : | Lieutenant in the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) - Interim Commander of the Cyangugu military barracks |
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| | | | Samuel Imanishimwe was born on 25 October 1961 in the Gisenyi prefecture of Rwanda. He was a Lieutenant in the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR, French acronym) and exercised the function of interim Commander of the Cyangugu military barracks (also known as the Karambo barracks) from October 1993 until his departure from Rwanda in July 1994. In this position, he exercised de facto and de jure authority over army units in Cyangugu prefecture with means at his disposal to prevent and punish any breaches of his authority.
In early April 1994, around 5000 Tutsis sought refuge in the Cyangugu cathedral in order to protect themselves from the violence against them. On 11 April 1994, three attacks were launched against the Tutsi refugees in the cathedral. Following the first attack, on 11 April 1994, at least seven refugees were arrested by the soldiers in the proximity of the Cathedral, taken to the Karambo barracks at Cyangugu and presented before Samuel Imanishimwe as being “Inyenzi-Inkotanyi”, who had been captured in the forest. On several occasions the soldiers kicked and otherwise brutalised the refugees, notably with their rifle butts, from the time they arrived at the camp and throughout their period of imprisonment. From time to time, Imanishimwe was present when such ill treatment was being meted out, but made no attempt to put a stop to it.
On 15 April 1994, Samuel Imanishimwe ordered the transfer of the refugees from the Cyangugu cathedral to the Kamarampaka stadium in Cyangugu after discussions with the ecclesiastical authorities who indicated that they could no longer provide adequate protection for the refugees in the cathedral without additional help from the prefecture and military authorities. The Tutsi refugees were escorted from the cathedral to the stadium by the church authorities, the prefect Emmanuel Bagambiki (see “related cases”) and the gendarmerie. Several other refugees were already present in the stadium, and others joined them later, including refugees from the Gihundwe school complex as well as from the Shangi parish. They all remained there until 11 May 1194 at which date they were transferred to the Nyarushishi camp.
On 12 April 1994, soldiers under the effective command of Imanishimwe participated in the killings of what were mainly Tutsi civilian refugees in the Gashirabwoba stadium. Fifteen soldiers arrived at the stadium, surrounded the refugees, shooting and throwing grenades at them for a period of thirty minutes even after the refugees had declared that they wanted peace. Imanishimwe took no measures to prevent this attack and no soldier was punished following this attack.
On 16 April 1994, the military selected 12 Tutsi refugees and one Hutu from amongst the refugees in the Kamarampaka stadium on the basis of a pre-established list. Samuel Imanishimwe was in attendance when these arrests took place. He and his soldiers took the refugees away for interrogation on their links to the FPR (French acronym: Rwandan Patriotic Front). Later that evening or during the night, 12 Tutsi refugees were executed together with 4 other Tutsi who had been selected and taken from the Cyangugu cathedral by the same authorities a short time beforehand.
On 6 June 1994, Imanishimwe, together with soldiers under his command participated in an army swoop on the town of Kamembe, arrested around 300 Tutsi civilians in the marketplace, and ordered the soldiers to kill certain of those who had been arrested. The soldiers, acting under orders from Imanishimwe, then transferred the Tutsi to the military barracks at Karambo, where, in the presence of Imanishimwe, the soldiers subjected many of them to severe beatings and in one case hammered a nail into the foot of one prisoner before taking it out and doing the same to another prisoner. At the same time as this cruel treatment was being carried out, the soldiers continued interrogation of the refugees, all of whom were civilian Tutsi, to find out if they were members of the FPR, accusing them of collaborating with the enemy. Imanishimwe did nothing to forbid or prevent the soldiers from inflicting such cruel treatment on the prisoners. Other civilian prisoners were executed by the soldiers on orders from Imanishimwe.
At the beginning of the summer of 1994, confronted with the advance of the FPR troops, Imanishimwe fled Rwanda. On 11 August 1997, he was arrested in Kenya. | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Rwanda | | | date of birth : | | | 25.10.1961 | | | last time seen : | | | Arusha (Tanzania) | | | period of charges : | | | 04.1994 - 06.1994 | | | judgement period : | | | 18.09.2000 - 07.07.2006 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
Genocide
War crimes | | | profile last modified : | | | 12.01.2008 |
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