UN tribunal finds 2 former Rwandan officials guilty of war crimes

The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) today convicted and sentenced two former government officials for crimes against humanity, including the country's information minister who ordered the mutilation of Tutsi bodies.

Eliezer Niyitegeka, Minister of Information of Rwanda's Interim Government in 1994, was given a life sentence for genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide, and both direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

The Tribunal concluded that Mr. Niyitegeka had played a prominent role in the events that took place in Kibuye prefecture, particularly in Bisesero, from April to June 1994. He procured gendarmes for an attack on Tutsis hiding inside Mubuga Church and also twice led armed attackers to Tutsi refugees who were at Muyira Hill.

Mr. Niyitegeka was also convicted of murder, extermination and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity – the first such conviction by the Tribunal. The trial court said his presence and instruction during the killing and mutilation of a Tutsi constituted an inhumane act, as was his instruction to attackers to mutilate the body of a murdered Tutsi woman.

The judges acquitted him, however, of complicity to commit genocide, rape as a crime against humanity and serious violations of a Geneva Convention.

In the second conviction, the Tribunal found Laurent Semanza, a former Bourgmestre of Bicumbi commune, guilty of complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

The trial judges found that the accused aided and abetted in the crime of genocide during massacres at Musha Church and Mwulire Hill. He was also found guilty of torture and murder as crimes against humanity for inciting a crowd in a commune to rape Tutsi women before killing them.

Mr. Semanza was also directly criminally responsible for the torture and murder of a Tutsi who he attacked during the church massacre. He was acquitted, however, of genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, persecution as a crime against humanity and serious violations of a Geneva Convention.