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Prosecutors seek life sentence for former militia leader

[Mauritania] Hungry child, El Mina slum, Nouakchott outskirts. [Date picture taken: 07/16/2006] Nicholas Reader/IRIN
West Africa is the worst place to be born in the world, with one in five children dying before age five
    DAKAR
    Prosecutors at the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Wednesday asked for the maximum life sentence for former Interahamwe vice-president Georges Rutaganda, the independent Hirondelle news agency said. “Without the participation of Georges Rutaganda, the murderous spiral of the Rwandan genocide would not have functioned the way it did,” Canadian prosecutor James Stewart told the court during closing arguments in the two-year trial. Rutaganda is charged with eight counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with massacres committed in Kigali and in Masango commune, Gitarama prefecture, where at least 2,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in 1994, Hirondelle reported.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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