Appeals Court reduces sentence for ex-mayor convicted of genocide

The Appeals Court of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda reduced on Monday a life sentence that a lower court had, in 2003, imposed on a former Rwandan mayor convicted of genocide.

The presiding judge, Fausto Pocar, ordered that the two life sentences plus 15 years earlier imposed on Juvenal Kajelijeli "shall be set aside and converted into a single sentence consisting of a fixed term of imprisonment of 45 years."

The reason, Pocar said, was that Kajelijeli's "fundamental rights" were violated during his arrest and detention in Benin. He was wrongly detained for 306 days and was not promptly informed of the provisional charges against him, Pocar ruled.

Kajelijeli, 54, was a mayor of Mukingo Commune, in Rwanda's northern province of Ruhengeri.

The trial court had found Kajelijeli guilty of instigating attacks against members of the Tutsi community in Mukingo, Nkuli and Kigombe communes, and convicted him on three out of the nine counts the tribunal's prosecutor had made against him.

Following the Appeals Court announcement, the tribunal's prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, told reporters, "As of now, we will have to be mindful of such violations to ensure that all states and the ICTR observe proper procedures."

The UN Security Council established the tribunal in 1994 to bring to trial the main perpetrators of the genocide. It has so far handed down 25 judgements; 22 convictions and three acquittals. Twenty-five detainees are on trial while 18 others await trial.