Accused `Kingpin` Of Rwandan Genocide

Bagosora graduated as an officer in 1964 and later went for advanced military studies at a French staff college.

The Tanzania-based U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is due to deliver its verdict on Thursday in the trial of the man accused of being the "kingpin" behind Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Below are facts about Theoneste Bagosora.

* Colonel Bagosora, 67, is accused of masterminding the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by machete-wielding militiamen from his Hutu majority. At the time of the killings he was cabinet director in the Defence Ministry.

* Bagosora says he is not guilty of the charges of genocide, complicity in genocide and inciting genocide. In court he said: "I do not believe in the genocide theory," while acknowledging there were massacres.

* Before the killings, Bagosora is accused of storming out of peace talks with then rebel leader Paul Kagame, now Rwanda's president, and saying he was returning to "prepare the apocalypse".

* Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of U.N. peacekeepers during the genocide, described Bagosora as the "kingpin" behind the genocide and said the colonel had threatened to kill him with a pistol.

* After the genocide, Bagosora managed to flee into exile in Cameroon. He was arrested there in 1996 and flown to face trial in 1997. His trial began in 2002 and lasted five years until mid-2007.

* Bagosora was born on Aug. 16, 1941 in Gisenyi prefecture of western Rwanda. The region was home to many of the former Hutu elite including President Juvenal Habyarimana, killed when his plane was shot down in Kigali, triggering the genocide.

* Bagosora graduated as an officer in 1964 and later went for advanced military studies at a French staff college. He retired from the army in 1993 but remained at his post in the Defence Ministry.