Former civic leader pleads guilty to genocide

A former Rwandan councillor pleaded guilty to charges of genocide on Wednesday before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), becoming the fourth person to admit guilt before the court over the 1994 killings in the central Africa nation.

The court set 17 January 2005 as the date when Vincent Rutaganira, 60, will be sentenced for his role in the genocide in which an estimated 937,000 people died, according to Rwandan government figures.

Rutaganira, who was arrested in a refugee camp in western Tanzania in 2002, pleaded guilty to charges of crimes against humanity, specifically murder and extermination, and violating the Geneva Conventions.

Others who have pleaded guilty before the tribunal - and were sentenced - include former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, Belgian-Italian journalist Georges Ruggiu and businessman Omar Serushago, who was also leader of the Rwandan militia group known as the Interahamwe that has been largely blamed for the genocide.

The UN court ordered Kambanda imprisoned for the remainder of his life and imposed prison terms of 12 years and 15 years, respectively, for Ruggiu and Serushago.

Upon Rutaganira's guilty plea, the prosecution dropped other genocide-related charges and asked the court to imprison him for a term of six to eight years, taking into account the period he has been in remand.

Judge Andresia Vaz presided over the case.

In a brief address to the court, Rutaganira said he was remorseful.

"I wish to seek forgiveness for the killings in 1994," he said, adding that his participation was not voluntary and not by conviction.

Rutaganira, father of 10 children, was councillor of Mubuga sector in Gishyita Commune in Rwanda's western province of Kibuye during the genocide.

The prosecution had accused him of participating in the killing of thousands of Tutsi refugees at the Mubuga church at the height of the genocide.