A French court has sentenced former Rwandan doctor Eugène Rwamucyo to 27 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Rwamucyo, now 65, was found guilty of complicity in genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity, and conspiring to commit these crimes through the spread of propaganda and attempts to conceal evidence of mass killings.
Despite his conviction, Rwamucyo denied any wrongdoing, and his defense team has indicated plans to appeal the sentence, according to local media.
Although acquitted of directly committing acts of genocide or crimes against humanity, Rwamucyo was accused of fueling ethnic violence.
Prosecuting lawyer Nicolas Peron argued that Rwamucyo, who did not personally carry out executions or torture, nonetheless bore responsibility as “one can ‘kill with words.’”
Born to a Hutu family, Rwamucyo was reportedly involved in disseminating anti-Tutsi rhetoric and, according to witnesses, participated in burying victims in mass graves to allegedly destroy evidence of the atrocities.
During the trial, Angélique Uwamahoro, who was 13 during the genocide, testified that she saw Rwamucyo at a roadblock in Butare, where she heard him encouraging Hutu militiamen to kill Tutsis, saying he “wanted to incite them to kill us so we don’t get out alive.”
However, Rwamucyo told the court, “I assure you that I did not order the killing of the survivors nor did I allow them to be killed,” arguing that his involvement in the burials was an effort to prevent a “health crisis.”
Prosecutors had initially requested a 30-year prison term, while survivor representatives had sought a life sentence.
In 2009, Rwamucyo was sentenced to life in absentia by a Rwandan court, though a French court later denied Rwanda’s request for his extradition.
He was arrested in France in 2010 after attending a funeral for another Rwandan official convicted of war crimes.
Rwamucyo’s case marks the eighth genocide-related trial in France since 1994, a period during which an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists.
The verdict follows the 24-year sentence handed down in December to former doctor Sosthene Munyemana, also convicted in France of organizing torture and killings during the genocide.
Source-BBC
