former police officer Philippe Manier sentenced to life imprisonment on appeal

Without making the slightest gesture, Philippe Hategekimana, naturalized French under the name of Philippe Manier, listened to his judgment. The former chief warrant officer of the gendarmerie was convicted on Tuesday, December 17, of genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated in April 1994 in Nyanza, in the south of Rwanda, and sentenced to life imprisonment. A verdict consistent with that pronounced at first instance.

After more than twelve hours of deliberation, the Paris Assize Court concluded that he had “registered in a genocidal organization and having been its zealous arm”, according to the president of the court, Marc Sommerer. “Instead of fulfilling your duties as a gendarme, of protecting the population, you used your authority and your prestige, he detailed. You took an active part in the murder of old men, women and children. » The one whom everyone nicknamed “Biguma” when he was in Rwanda, from the name of a teacher renowned for his severity, was judged for imprescriptible facts under the principle of universal jurisdiction which has allowed, since 2010, the prosecution of perpetrators of serious crimes regardless of where they were committed.

“It is an unsurprising result, declared Alain Gauthier, president of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), an association which tracks suspected genocidaires in France. The judgment is identical to that which was pronounced at first instance. When an accused appeals in this type of trial, it must be reasoned and provide new elements. This was not the case during the six weeks of hearings. »

During his trial, Philippe Manier, 67, cowered on his fragile alibi and his positions. He claimed to have left Nyanza for Kigali, the capital, where he had just been transferred, in the second half of April 1994. He claimed to have taken the road « the 19 [avril] »four days before the assassination of Narcisse Nyagasaza, a mayor who delayed the application of the government’s genocidal instructions in his commune. An assassination of which he was found guilty. Philippe Manier claims that he could not have been on the hills of Nyamure and Nyabubare on April 23, 1994, when several thousand Tutsi were exterminated with machetes by Interahamwe militiamen. and Hutu inhabitants.

Runaway

Philippe Manier and his multiple agendas did not convince. During the investigation, the accused first said he arrived in Kigali « the 25th [avril] », Then « the 20th or the 21st » and another time “the 22nd or the 26th”. “Philippe Manier’s story is based on lies and gray areas, castigated Rodolphe Juy-Birmann, attorney general, during his requisitions on Friday. Not a single line is sincere, he doesn’t care about the credibility of his denials and he ended up convincing himself of his own lies. »

After the genocide, “Biguma” fled, in July 1994, to Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of Congo) then to Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic and Cameroon. A run during which he changed his identity several times. Equipped with false documents, Philippe Hategekimana arrived in France in February 1999, where he highlighted his past as a sports teacher in Rwanda – which he was – to the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons ( Ofpra) to obtain refugee status.

In April 2005, he was naturalized French by decree under the name Philippe Manier. He then worked as a fire safety officer at the University of Rennes. In 2015, a complaint was filed against him by the CPCR. He then fled to Cameroon, where he was arrested three years later at Yaoundé airport while waiting for his wife, whose phone was tapped by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes Against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH).

Around a hundred witnesses appeared before the Paris court or were heard by videoconference from Kigali. Thirty years after the events, some testimonies have proven to be imprecise and sometimes even contradictory. The defense logically stepped into these gaps to try to discredit them.

“Philippe Manier was convicted on the basis of incomplete and insufficient evidence, lamented M^e Emmanuel Altit, one of the former gendarme’s four lawyers. We demonstrated throughout the trial that there was nothing in the case except fabricated testimony. »

Massacre

But the jury of the Assize Court considered that the story of Valens Bayingana, a survivor of the Nyamure massacre who claimed to have seen “Biguma” “with a brown uniform, a red beret and a rifle” in the process of “shoot and give orders”was authentic. According to him, Philippe Hategekimana was even the one who shot first “about a group of women” to give the starting signal for the mass massacre. The jurors also considered that the testimony of Julienne Nyirakuru, aged around ten years old at the time of the events, was credible when she declared having seen the chief warrant officer “distribute machetes to residents”. Many others attested to his presence where the massacres of the Tutsi were decided or orchestrated.

“On Nyaburare hill, we even said: “Biguma is coming, no one will survive!” argued Aude Duret, general counsel. He coordinated the attacks, he was the head of operations. » His presence at the “barriers”, these checkpoints manned by the population or by Interahamwe and where thousands of Tutsi were exterminated during the genocide which left between 800,000 and a million dead in the spring of 1994, has also been attested on numerous occasions. On the Akazu K’amazi barrier – the “fire hydrant” in Kinyarwanda –, where a group of twenty-eight Tutsi found their death, five witnesses recognized them.

“The final stage of genocide is indifference”argued Jean Simon, lawyer for the Survie association and fifteen civil parties. Philippe Manier was a little less silent during this second trial, but he never expressed empathy for the survivors of the massacres who paraded before him and did not utter a single word of compassion. Before the court retired to deliberate, he read a short text in which he declared that “the genocide was an atrocious reality” and that “all the families had been affected” before reaffirming his innocence. His defense has ten days to appeal to the Court of Cassation.