During her rape by a militiaman, the nun screamed and spit at the face of the woman they called “Commander Beatrice,” the witness recounted from the stand. “If you don’t want to be like other women, let me take you somewhere else,” the militiawoman responded. She took the nun to an open pit and shot her with a pistol.
The alleged rape and murder took place in Butare, Rwanda, during that country’s 1994 genocide. The testimony was by Jean-Damascene “Saddam” Munyanyeza, a slight Rwandan wearing leg shackles and a blue work jacket that looked three sizes too large. He spoke not before an international tribunal, but through a translator to a federal jury in New Hampshire. The defendant, Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, was on trial not for murder or genocide, but for immigration fraud.
