Swiss court cuts former mayor’s life sentence

The former mayor of Mushubati, Fulgence Niyonteze, who was last year sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 genocide, on Friday had his sentence reduced to 14 years on legal technicalities, the independent Hirondelle news agency reported. It said a Swiss military tribunal found Niyonteze guilty of violating the Geneva Conventions which protect civilians in times of war, but did not uphold the decision of a lower court which also found him guilty of murder and incitement to murder. Niyonteze’s lawyers are seeking an acquittal and have already said they will take the case to Switzerland’s top military appeals court, Hirondelle said. The defence base its demands on what it called the “incoherence” of witness testimonies. The tribunal, however, found that witness testimonies were largely credible, bearing in mind cultural differences and the fact that many of the Rwandan witnesses were illiterate.