Ladislas Ntaganzwa, one of the top fugitive suspects accused of playing a
key role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi arrives at the
Nyarugunga Primary Court on April 4, 2016. FILE PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA |
NMG
Rwanda's High Court on Thursday sentenced a former mayor to life
in prison for his role in the country's 1994 Genocide against the
Tutsi, which included leading attacks that resulted in the deaths of
around 25,000 ethnic Tutsis in his town.
Ladislas
Ntaganzwa was one of the top fugitive suspects, accused of playing a key
role in the massacre of over a million Tutsi, when he was arrested in
the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015.
A statement
from Rwanda's prosecution authority said the court "convicted him for
genocide, extermination as crime against humanity and rape as crime
against humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment."
Ntaganzwa
was however "not found guilty of murder as crime against humanity and
direct and public incitement to commit genocide," the prosecution
authority said.
Ntaganzwa—who had a $5-million US
bounty on his head—was accused of organising "the massacre of thousands
of Tutsis at various locations," the UN-backed Mechanism for
International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) said when he was arrested.
"He was also alleged to have orchestrated the rape and sexual violence committed against many women," it said.
The court found the former mayor of southern Nyakizu had
personally led a series of massacres of Tutsi civilians, including an
attack on a church where thousands had taken shelter.
"It's
a guilty verdict. The court has sentenced him to life in prison.
Overall we are not satisfied with the ruling. We are going to appeal,"
his lawyer Alexis Musonera told AFP.
The verdict was
welcomed by those who survived the massacres, such as Rutayisire Masengo
47, a representative of survivors in Nyarugenge, a district of the
capital Kigali, who himself lost six members of his family in the
genocide.
"Ntanganzwa was a leader; and leaders like
him could have stopped the genocide if they wanted to. Instead, he gave
guns and weapons to the residents to kill their fellow residents," he
said.
Ntaganzwa is the third suspect to be tried in
Rwanda, after earlier genocide accused were tried by the UN-backed
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania,
which closed in 2015.
The Mechanism for International
Criminal Tribunals (MICT) is now handling residual duties of the court
with branches in The Hague and Arusha.
Investigators
tracking the fugitives scored a major win this month with the arrest of
the alleged financier of the genocide, Felicien Kabuga, in France, after
25 years on the run.
A judge in The Hague ruled
Thursday Kabuga would be tried by the war crimes tribunal in Arusha once
travel restrictions due to the coronavirus are eased.
It emerged last week that another top suspect, former defence minister Augustin Bizimana, had actually been dead for 20 years.
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