A Catholic priest accused of killing Rwandans in the 1994 genocide went on trial today.
Father Athanase Seromba (41) is the first Catholic priest to face charges at the tribunal in connection with the genocide, in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by Hutu extremists in 100 days, although he is not the first clergyman.
Prosecutors at a UN tribunal charge he ordered collaborators to bulldoze a church in which 2,000 Tutsis were hiding.
Fr Seromba has pleaded not guilty to charges including genocide and crimes against humanity, and his trial began without him as he refused to leave his detention cell.
A separate trial of former army chief of staff Augustin Bizimungu and four other military commanders also began on Monday at the tribunal at Arusha in northern Tanzania, set up in 1995 to try the masterminds of the genocide.
The accused remained in detention in Arusha, refusing to come to court to protest at what they see as the tribunal's selective prosecution of Hutus.
A UN spokesman was not immediately available for comment on if and when the defendants would have to appear.
The accused argue that former rebels from the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, many of whom are now members of the government, also committed war crimes at the time.
Although priests were among those murdered, survivors have reported numerous incidents in which Catholic priests and nuns took part in killings, and encouraged their congregations to kill or colluded with gangs of killers in rounding up victims.