Ex-soldier sentenced to 15 years for murder of tourists

A Ugandan court has sentenced a former Rwandan soldier-turned-rebel to 15 years in prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing of eight foreign tourists and a Ugandan game warden. Jean-Paul Bizimana, 31, also known as Xavier Van Damme, was part of a group of Hutu rebels who claimed responsibility for the slaying in March 1999 at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Park in southwestern Uganda. Bizimana was a leader in the group, which consisted of 100 combatants from the Interahamwe militia. The Interahamwe played a key role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which some 937,000 people were killed, according to the Rwandan government. The tourists included two Americans, four Britons and two New Zealanders. They were on a safari to see mountain gorillas in the park. The rebels used machetes and blunt objects to hack and bludgeon the tourists to death. They killed the Ugandan game warden by setting him on fire. Before High Court Judge John Bosco Katutsi passed sentence on Monday, Bizimana pleaded for lenience. "I have a family to look after," he said. Katutsi responded: "People who were killed in cold blood had families like you". The prosecutor, Simon Byabakama, had requested the death sentence but Katutsi said some of the murdered tourists came from countries where the death sentence is illegal. Bizimana was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for each of the nine counts against him, but he will be able to serve all the sentences concurrently.