ARUSHA, Tanzania (Reuters) - A Rwandan pastor, extradited from the United States last year, went on trial with his son at a U.N. tribunal Tuesday facing charges of involvement in their country's 1994 genocide.
Seventh Day Adventist Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana is the first church leader to come to trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and is represented by former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark.
He and his son Gerard, a medical doctor, have pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity alleged to have been carried out in 1994 when Hutu extremists massacred 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Father and son, dressed in dark suits and sitting side by side, were impassive as the prosecution set out its case, launching a scathing attack on the 77-year-old church leader.
British prosecutor Charles Adeogun Phillips said the pastor encouraged a large group of Tutsi men, women and children to seek refuge in a church and hospital in the Kibuye region of western Rwanda and then called Hutus to come and kill them.
``Dressed in his customary suit and tie, Pastor Ntakirutimana watched as people were shot and beaten to death, encouraging the killers to ensure no one survived,'' Phillips said.
``TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED...''
The prosecutor read from a letter allegedly sent to Ntakirutimana by seven Adventist pastors who were subsequently killed, an incident featured heavily in U.S. writer Philip Gourevitch's book on the genocide.
``We wish to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families,'' Phillips said, quoting a line of the letter which Gourevitch uses as the title of his book.
Ntakirutimana's response was contained ``in a brief, heartless letter,'' Phillips said. ``It stated 'there's nothing I can do for you. All you can do is to prepare to die, for your time has come.'''
Clark and fellow defense attorney Edward Medvene, also from the United States, argued that neither Ntakirutimana nor his son were in the area where the attacks took place on April 16, 1994.
Clark told the court the pastor was known as a conciliator and ``couldn't so much as wring the neck of a chicken.''
``He has never...been known to engage in violence...He was never in Bisesero in April, May or June. The charges against this man make no sense at all,'' he said.
Many Tutsis took refuge in churches during the genocide, only to find their place of refuge became a massacre site.
Human rights groups say some church leaders from various denominations used their authority to encourage the massacres and join in the killing.
An Anglican bishop is awaiting trial at the ICTR on genocide charges after being arrested in Kenya this year. In June, a Belgian court sentenced four Rwandans, including two Catholic nuns, to between 12 and 20 years in prison for helping Hutu extremists kill more than 5,000 Tutsis.
Ntakirutimana fled to Texas after the genocide, but was arrested by U.S. authorities in 1996. After losing several appeals against his extradition, he was finally transferred to the ICTR in the Tanzanian town of Arusha on March 24 last year.