Arusha: The man who had a $5m US bounty on his head before he was arrested by Congolese, UN and American undercover detectives last year saw his trail begin on Monday at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Appearing before the trial chamber III, prosecutors read a charge sheet to Grégoire Ndahimana including of genocide, complicity to commit genocide, extermination as a crime against humanity.

Ndahimana was the bourgumester of Kavumu commune – in the current western province before and during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis.

According to the indictment, Ndahimana prepared and planned the massacre at Nyange Parish in which over 2000 Tutsis were killed, as part of a plan to exterminate the Tusti population.

He allegedly planned the slaughters catholic priest Athanase Seromba, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the ICTR in 2008, and Fulgence Kayishema, who remains a fugitive of the court.

Ndahimana was arrested on 10 August 2010 in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and transferred to the ICTR on 21 August 2009. When he appeared to hear the charges against him on 28 September the same year, Ndahimana pleaded not guilty to all charges.