STOCKHOLM: A Swede of Rwandan origin was charged Friday with genocide and war crimes after having been convicted in his absence in Rwanda for involvement in the country’s 1994 genocide, the Stockholm prosecutor’s office said.
The suspect, who had lived in Sweden since 2002 and was naturalized in 2012, is suspected of being a low-level official involved in the murders, attempted murders and kidnappings of Tutsis.
His trial opens Sept. 16 and is due to end in March.
He was sentenced in 2007 in absentia to 30 years behind bars by the Rwandan authorities who later tracked him to Sweden, where Swedish officials opened an inquiry. Prosecutor Tora Holst told AFP that the suspect, who was placed in detention pending trial a year ago, could not be expelled to Rwanda because he was now Swedish.
Under Swedish law a suspect can be remanded in custody while a prosector gathers evidence to bring charges. According to the UN, some 800,000 people died in the Rwandan genocide, which began after the assassination of Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana two decades ago.
Sweden charges Rwanda genocide suspect
Sweden charges Rwanda genocide suspect
‘Solar sheep’ help rural Australia go green
- The panels have had another surprising side effect: Because the grass is shielded from the elements, it’s of more consistent quality
DUBBO: Australian farmer Tom Warren’s solar panels look like any other — until you spot the dozens of sheep grazing and napping, helping the country transition to green energy and earning him a decent income while doing it.
More than 30,000 solar panels are deployed across approximately 50 hectares at Warren’s farm on the outskirts of Dubbo, around 400 kilometers west of Sydney.
The farmer and landowner has been working with renewables firm Neoen for more than a decade and said he was initially worried the panels would restrict his sheep’s grazing.
It quickly became clear those fears were unfounded.
“Normally they would seek out trees and camp under the trees, but you can see that the sheep are seeking out the shade of the panels,” he told AFP at the farm in Dubbo.
“So, it’s a much better environment for them as well.”
The farm produces about 20 megawatts of power, he said — a “substantial amount” of the energy needs of the local area.
While he can’t disclose how much he earns from the panels, he said he’s taking in much more than he would from just farming.
“The solar farm income is greater than I would ever get off agriculture in this area — regardless of whether I have sheep running under the panels or not,” he said.
The panels have had another surprising side effect: Because the grass is shielded from the elements, it’s of more consistent quality.
That, in turn, has improved the wool produced by the sheep.
“The wool is actually better and cleaner,” Warren said.
“All over, we’ve had about a 15 percent increase in the gross revenue coming from the sheep running under the solar farm.”
Fellow farmer Tony Inder, based around 50 kilometers south in the town of Wellington, agrees.
His flock is much larger — 6,000 sheep grazing on two plots of land covering 4,000 hectares.
