Rwanda: UN Court Jails Ex-Military Leader, Two Others For Life On Genocide Charges
New York, Dec 18 2008 1:10PM
A United Nations court today sentenced the alleged mastermind behind the 1994 massacre of hundreds of thousands of
people in Rwanda and two co-defendants to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In a trial that began nearly nine years ago, the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found Colonel
Théoneste Bagosora, the highest authority over the Rwandan military in April 1994 when the genocide of ethnic Tutsis and
moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists began, responsible for the killing of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and other
leading officials.
The court, which sits in Arusha, Tanzania, found him equally guilty in connection with the killing of 10 Belgian
peacekeepers by Rwandan soldiers, and responsible for the organized killings perpetrated by soldiers and militiamen in
Kigali, the capital, and Gisenyi in the west of the tiny country between 6 and 9 April, 1994.
The ICTR found Lieutenant-Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva guilty as commander of the elite Para Commando Battalion for the
participation of his soldiers in killings at Kabeza, Nyanza Hill and the African and Mauritian Statistical and Economic
Institute in Kigali.
Major Aloys Ntabakuze was found guilty in connection with the massacres at Mutende University, the targeted killings of
civilians in Gisenyi prefecture, and for sending militiamen to Bisesero in Kibuye prefecture to kill displaced Tutsis in
June 1994.
A fourth defendant, Brigadier-General Gratien Kabiligi, was acquitted and ordered released. The prosecution alleged that
he participated in the distribution of weapons, meetings to plan genocide and a number of specific crimes but the court
found that it was not proven that he had operational authority or targeted civilians.
All of the accused were acquitted of conspiring to commit genocide before 7 April, when the violence erupted following
the death a day earlier of President Juvénal Habyarimana when his plane was shot down. A total of 242 witnesses were
heard during the trial – 82 for the prosecution and 160 for the defence – during 408 days of active sessions.
In another case the ICTR sentenced Protais Zigiranyirazo, Mr. Habyarimana’s brother-in-law, to 20 years jail on charges
of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for “participating in a joint criminal enterprise with the
common purpose of committing genocide and extermination of Tutsi at Kesho Hill as well as aiding and abetting genocide
at the Kiyovu roadblock.”
But it acquitted the defendant, also known as “Mr. Z,” of conspiracy to commit genocide, complicity in genocide and
murder as a crime against humanity, declaring that the prosecution had failed to prove that he conspired with officials
to plan or facilitate attacks on Tutsis or that he had criminal responsibility for alleged involvement in the
Interahamwe militant Hutu group.
ENDS