His trial in substance set to begin on Tuesday 5th July 2022, will take place at the court based in Nyanza District.

Dr. Rutunga, 72, was deported in 2021 from the Netherlands where he spent more than ten years.

He is charged with crimes including complicity in committing Genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity.

During the previous hearing last year, the Prosecution accused Rutunga to have committed the crimes between April 26 and 30, 1994 in former Butare Prefecture currently in Huye district where he was working as the Regional Director of the Rwanda Agricultural Research Institute (ISAR-Rubona).

It is said that Dr. Rutunga invited Interahamwe militia to kill over 1000 Tutsi who fled to ISAR Rubona during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.

He later fled to foreign countries and was denied asylum status by the Netherlands in 2000.

He worked partially as a researcher at Wageningen University in The Netherlands prior to his arrest in 2019.

Dr. Rutunga was born in 1949 in the former Ruhengeri Prefecture, currently Gakenke district in the Northen Province.

During the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, he lived in what is today Rubona village, Kiruhura cell, Ruhashya sector, Huye district in Southern Province.