Planner of Rwandan massacres convicted
TANZANIA: A former Rwandan Army colonel behind the 1994 slaughter of
more than 500,000 people was convicted of genocide Thursday and
sentenced to life in prison, the most significant verdict of a U.N.
tribunal set up to bring the killers to justice.
Col. Theoneste Bagosora was found guilty of crimes against humanity,
and the court said he used his position as director of Rwanda’s Ministry
of Defense to direct Hutu soldiers to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Former military commanders Anatole Nsengiyumva and Aloys Ntabakuze
also were found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life in prison. The
former chief of military operations, Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, was
cleared of all charges and released.
“It’s been a very important day in the tribunal here with judgments
given in respect of very important cases which shed a lot of light on
really what happened on that fateful day, on 6th April 1994, and the few
days following thereafter,” Hassan Bubacar Jallow, chief prosecutor at
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, told French
international news channel France 24.
The court said that Bagosora “was the highest authority in the
Rwandan Ministry of Defense with authority over the Rwandan military”
and was responsible for the deaths of former Rwandan Prime Minister
Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian peacekeepers who tried to protect
her as she was killed at the outset of the genocide.
Bagosora, 67, said nothing as the verdict was delivered Thursday, and
there was complete silence from the scores of people who had packed into
the aisles of the tiny courtroom to hear the judgment.
His conviction was welcomed by genocide survivors, who still live
uneasily among perpetrators in the central African nation nearly 15
years later.
ARUSHA, Friday, AP |
