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A U.N. court sentenced a former army colonel accused of masterminding the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994 to life in prison on Thursday.
The Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had accused Theoneste Bagosora, 67, of being in charge of the troops and Interahamwe Hutu militia who butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.
"Colonel Bagosora is guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes," the court said.
Prosecutors said Bagosora, then cabinet director in the Defense 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 United Nations 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 court said that before the killings, Bagosora stormed out of peace talks in Tanzania saying he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare the apocalypse."
"This verdict sends a strong message to tyrants everywhere that if they commit the worst crimes they spend the rest of their lives in jail," said Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch.
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. He was acquitted of the charge that he conspired to commit genocide before April 1994.
Belgian peacekeepers
Bagosora was found guilty in connection with the killing of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and responsible for the deaths of Rwanda's prime minister and head of the constitutional court
.
He was also found responsible for organized killings at a number of sites in Rwanda's capital Kigali and in Gisenyi.
Fellow former officers Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva and Major Aloys Ntabakuze were also sentenced to life for genocide, although General Gratien Kabiligi was acquitted of all charges.
The court also sentenced businessman and Habyarimana's brother-in-law Protais Zigiranyirazo, known as "Monsieur Z," to 20 years in prison for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity.
Zigiranyirazo, 70, was accused of being a member of the Akazu, the small yet powerful ruling elite of Hutu family members and relatives who are believed to have plotted to exterminate the minority Tutsis.
He 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 its ruling, the court found Zigiranyirazo guilty of aiding and abetting killings at a roadblock and of giving a speech to assailants who then murdered between 800 and 1500 Tutsi refugees at Kesho hill.
The court began its work in 1997. It has until the end of the year to wind up its activities and until 2010 to hear all appeals. The U.N. General Assembly is discussing whether to extend the court's mandate.
PHOTO CAPTION
Theoneste Bagosora, a cabinet minister in the former Rwandan government, is brought to court in Tanzania in a 1997 file photo.
Reuters
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