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Rwandan Genocide Instigator Given Life Sentence

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  • Rwandan Genocide Instigator Given Life Sentence

    RWANDAN GENOCIDE INSTIGATOR GIVEN LIFE SENTENCE

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    18.12.2008 18:51 GMT+04:00

    Former senior defense official Theoneste Bagosora has been convicted
    of instigating Rwanda's 1994 genocide and sentenced to life in
    prison. Bagosora and two co-defendants were found by a UN tribunal
    to have led a committee that plotted the massacre of ethnic Tutsis
    and moderate Hutus. It is the first time the Rwanda tribunal has
    convicted anyone of organizing the killings.

    More than 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda's genocide.

    Along with Bagosora, former military commanders Anatole Nsegiyumva and
    Alloys Ntabakuze were also found guilty of genocide, crimes against
    humanity and war crimes, and given life sentences.

    Bagosora, 67, and the two senior military officers were found to
    have organized, trained and armed the Interahamwe militia, which was
    responsible for most of the killing.

    They were also responsible for drawing up a list of Tutsis and moderate
    Hutus who opposed their vision of an ethnically pure Rwanda. The
    International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania,
    rejected the defense's argument that the killing was not organized,
    and therefore not genocide.

    Bagosora's lawyer, Raphael Constant, said his client would appeal
    against the verdict.

    Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, the former chief of military operations,
    who was on trial with Bagosora and the two other men, was cleared of
    all charges and ordered to be released from custody immediately.

    In another verdict on Thursday, the tribunal sentenced Protais
    Zigiranyirazo, 57, to 20 years in jail for his part in the genocide.

    Mr Zigiranyirazo, a brother-in-law of former President Juvenal
    Habyarimana, was accused of ordering Hutus to kill 48 people in
    two incidents.

    The sentences will be welcomed by the government in Rwanda, which has
    come to regard the tribunal as a key part of the process of justice
    and reconciliation.

    Bagosora has been in custody since 1996, when he was arrested in
    Cameroon.

    Prosecutors said Bagosora assumed control of military and political
    affairs in Rwanda when President Habyarimana's plane was shot down
    in 1994 - the catalyst for the genocide.

    However, the indictment alleges that he set out to "prepare the
    apocalypse" as far back as 1990, BBC reports.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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