A Rwandan woman testifying at the first war crimes trial in Canadian history told a Montreal court Monday she smeared the blood of her sister on her forehead and pretended to be dead for three days to stay safe.

The woman, identified only as witness C-15, was the first witness to testify at the trial of Désiré Munyaneza, accused of the murder and rape of Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

An undated court sketch shows Désiré Munyaneza.

Munyaneza is the first person to be charged under Canada's new Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which became law in 2000. He will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Munyaneza, 40, faces seven charges:

• Two counts of genocide.
• Two counts of crimes against humanity.
• Three counts of war crimes.

The Hutu son of a well-to-do soft-drink and beer distributor in Butare, Munyaneza is accused of systematically targeting Tutsis for murder and sexual violence in a bid to destroy them.

He is also charged with attacking civilian populations and pillaging Tutsi homes and businesses.

The woman told the court she was a Tutsi living in Butare at the time of the genocide.

She said she and her sister left their home for the local school by order of the Hutus. The attacks began at the school, she said.

The woman said she was slashed on the forehead with a machete while trying to escape. She fell and lost consciousness, she said.

She woke up lying on top of her dead sister, she said. She smeared her sister's blood on herself and spent the next three days pretending to be dead, the woman said.

An estimated 800,000 killed in 1994

When she finally left the school, she had to step on bodies to get out because there was no open space on the floor, the woman testified.

She told the court she was one of two survivors among 3,000 people.

An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists in the central African country in 1994, in one of the century's worst massacres.

The Crown's witness list includes Senator Romeo Dallaire, who led United Nations peacekeepers in Rwanda during the genocide.

An appeal is likely whatever the trial's outcome and the case is expected to end up at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Munyaneza came to Canada in 1996 and claimed refugee status, but was turned down. He moved to Toronto, where he was living with his wife and two children at the time of his arrest in October 2005.

Gerald Caplan, a leading authority on the Rwandan genocide, told CBC News that holding the trial sends an important message to the international community: There is no impunity for those accused of committing crimes in other countries.

"You want to flee to Canada and make a claim here or think you can disappear here, [but] you can never again be sure that the Canadian courts won't clamp down on you," Caplan said.

 

With files from the Canadian Press