Four Rwandans, including two Benedictine nuns, are due to go on trial in Brussels later today accused of war crimes in Rwanda in 1994.
The trial marks the first time a civil court outside Rwanda has tried suspects of the attempted genocide, which left hundreds of thousands dead.
It is being held under a 1993 law giving Belgian courts jurisdiction to judge war crimes regardless of where they were committed, the nationality of the victims or the nationality and place of residence of the accused.
Mr Vincent Ntezimana (39), a university professor, and Mr Alphonse Higaniro (51) a former minister and businessman, are suspected of inciting and organising the slaying of Tutsis in the southern Rwandan region of Butare.
Ms Consolata Mukangango (Sister Gertrude) and Ms Julienne Mukabutera (Sister Maria Kisito), two Roman Catholic nuns aged 42 and 36 respectively, are suspected of handing over several thousand people who took refuge in the Sovu convent to the Hutu killers.
Sister Gertrude was the mother superior at the convent.
Troops of Rwanda's then Hutu army systematically slaughtered minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocide before the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front seized power and ended the massacres.
Between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died between April and July 1994.
AFP