Woman Charged With Rape in Rwanda Killings

UNITED NATIONS —  For the first time in history, a woman has been charged with rape as a crime against humanity, a U.N. spokesman said Thursday.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a former Rwandan minister of family and women’s affairs, already faces a genocide charge before the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda for her alleged role in the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

Nyiramasuhuko is also the first woman to be indicted by an international criminal tribunal, the U.N. spokesman said.

The tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania, allowed the rape charge to be added on grounds that the accused knew her subordinates were raping Tutsi women and failed to take measures to prevent or punish them.

Nyiramasuhuko was charged jointly with her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of the Geneva Conventions, which govern the conduct of war.

Both of the accused are in custody at the U.N. detention facility in Arusha.