ICTR finds two former officials guilty of genocide

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found two former Rwandan officials guilty of genocide and convicted one to life imprisonment and the other to 25 years in jail, the ICTR reported on Thursday.

In a statement, the tribunal said Eliezer Niyitigeka, 51, who was information minister in Rwanda between April and July 1994, was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to life in prison. Laurent Semanza, 69, a former mayor in Bicumbi commune in Rwanda's Kigali Rural province, was convicted of complicity to commit genocide and of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

"The Niyitegeka and Semanza judgements represent the first time the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has delivered two decisions on one day," the ICTR said.

According to the tribunal, Niyitegeka's trial, which closed after 31 days of hearings, was also the fastest heard so far by the ICTR. "It [the trial] witnessed the first post-trial conviction for conspiracy to commit genocide and the first conviction for other inhumane acts, such as the decapitation and castration of a man, and the sexual mutilation of a dead woman".

The April-June 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsi and politically moderate ethnic Hutu.

ICTR Judges Navanethem Pillay (presiding), Erik Mose and Andresia Vaz, found Niyitegeka guilty of charges that included genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, murder, extermination and crimes against humanity. He committed the crimes in Bisesero, Kibuye province, between April and June 1994.

The judges said Niyitegeka was present during the killing and mutilation of a Tutsi in June 1994, and that he instructed "Interahamwe" militiamen to mutilate the body of a murdered Tutsi woman.

Judges Yakov Ostrovsky (presiding), Lloyd George Williams and Pavel Dolenc, found Semanza guilty of complicity to commit genocide, extermination, torture and murder. His sentence was reduced by six months because of violations of his rights that occurred while in detention before his transfer to the ICTR. Semanza will also receive credit for time spent in custody in Arusha, Tanzania, the tribunal's headquarters.

The judges found that Semanza "aided and abetted" in the crime of genocide during massacres at Musha church and at Mwulire hill between 13 and 18 April 1994. He was also found guilty of torture and murder as crimes against humanity.

The UN Security Council established the ICTR in 1995 to try the alleged perpetrators of the genocide. It has handed down 11 judgements since its inception.