Appeal Trial of Claude MUHAYIMANA

February 3 to 27, 2026, at the Paris Criminal Court.

Prosecuted for “complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity,” Muhayimana was sentenced in the initial trial on December 16, 2021, to 14 years’ imprisonment. Both the defense and the prosecution appealed the verdict.

In June 2013, without waiting for the decision regarding his extradition to Rwanda, the CPCR, decided to press charges and become a civil plaintiff in the case against Claude Muhayimana, a former Interahamwe from Kibuye and actual municipal employee of the city of Rouen.

In December 2011, Claude Muhayimana was the object of an international arrest warrant. A few months later, the Rouen Court of Appeal issued a favorable opinion regarding his extradition, a decision overturned by the Court of Cassation on July 11, 2012, and confirmed in 2014 following a favorable opinion from the Paris Court of Appeal.

In November 2017, the accused was committed to stand trial at the Paris Criminal Court, a decision against which he appealed. It wasn’t until April 4, 2019, that this appeal was rejected, and more than two more years passed before his trial was held before the Paris Criminal Court after two successive postponements^[1]. Four years elapsed between the decision to commit him for trial and the first trial, and more than four more years before the appeal trial was held. Delays that victims and families of survivors consider intolerable. Moreover, he was released a year after his conviction and placed under judicial supervision pending his appeal trial.

The CPCR represents about twenty individual civil plaintiffs.

Daily reports will be posted on the French section of the site.

1. originally scheduled from September 29 to October 23, 2020 then from February 2 to 26, 2021, postponed due to the health crisis[↑]