AFP Report
A French court on Wednesday sentenced former Rwandan doctor Sosthene Munyemana to 24 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda.
After a deliberation lasting nearly 15 hours, the 68-year-old former gynaecologist was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and participation in a conspiracy to prepare those crimes.
He is the sixth suspect to have faced trial in France over the 1994 genocide in which over one million Tutsis died in 100 days of mass killings.
The six-week-long trial at the Assize Court in Paris came nearly three decades after a complaint was filed against Munyemana in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux in 1995.
Munyemana was immediately incarcerated after the verdict was passed.
The public prosecutor had sought a sentence of 30 years, arguing the “sum total” of his choices showed “the traits of a genocidaire”.
Munyemana was accused of helping draft a letter of support for the then interim government, which encouraged the massacre of the Tutsis.
He was also accused of helping set up roadblocks to round people up and keeping them in inhumane conditions in local government offices before they were killed in Butare, where he lived at the time.
During the trial, Munyemana repeatedly disputed the accusations, claiming he had been a moderate Hutu who had tried to “save” Tutsis by offering them “refuge” in local government offices.
Reading the verdict, the judge said Munyemana was part of a group that “prepared, organised and steered the genocide of the Tutsis… on a daily basis”.
After fleeing to France in September 1994, where his wife was already living, the father of three rebuilt his life in the country’s southwest, first as an emergency doctor and then as a geriatrician.
France has been one of the top destinations for the genocide perpetrators fleeing justice at home.
