Tonight:
9°c
Guilty: the mastermind who ordered genocide of 800,000 Rwandans
Ed Harris18.12.08
A FORMER army colonel accused of masterminding Rwanda's genocide in 1994 was today sentenced to life in prison.
Theoneste Bagosora, 67, was accused by a UN court of being in charge of the troops and the Interahamwe Hutu militia which butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days. He was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Tanzania. "Colonel Bagosora is guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes," the court said, in its first conviction for the killings.
Prosecutors said Bagosora, then cabinet director in Rwanda's defence ministry, assumed control of military and political affairs in the central African country when president Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of UN peacekeepers during the genocide, described Bagosora as the "kingpin" behind the genocide and said the colonel had threatened to kill him with a pistol.
In its indictment, the tribunal said that before the killings, Bagosora stormed out of peace talks in Tanzania saying he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare the apocalypse".
After the genocide, Bagosora fled into exile in Cameroon. He was arrested there in 1996 and flown to face trial in 1997. His trial began in 2002 and lasted five years until mid-2007.
Bagosora faced 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Fellow former officers Anatole Nsengiyumva and Aloys Ntabakuze were also sentenced to life, although Gratien Kabiligi was acquitted of all charges.
The court also sentenced businessman Protais Zigiranyirazo, Habyarimana's brother-in-law, who was known as Monsieur Z, to 20 years in prison for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity.
In its ruling, the court said: "The chamber has found Zigiranyirazo guilty of having participated in a joint criminal enterprise with the common purpose of committing genocide and extermination, as well as aiding and abetting genocide."
Zigiranyirazo, 70, was accused of being a member of the notorious Zero Network of death squads which killed hundreds of Tutsis and opposition leaders in the years leading up to the genocide.
In their indictment, prosecutors said Zigiranyirazo paid militia to dig a mass grave outside his compound to bury those killed.
The court also accused him of arming, training and clothing the Interahamwe militia who conducted most of the slaughter and armed the local population in Gisenyi. It has until the end of the year to wind up the hearings and until 2010 to hear all appeals.
