A French Judge Sentences Two Former Rwandan Mayors to Life for Their Role in 1994 Genocide.

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2 Rwandan Ex-Mayors Handed Life Terms Over Genocide
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSJULY 6, 2016, 4:06 P.M. E.D.T.


PARIS — A French court sentenced two former Rwandan mayors to life in prison Wednesday for playing leading roles in the mass killing of ethnic Tutsis during the first days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

A Paris jury found Tito Barahira, 65, and Octavien Ngenzi, 58, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity over the massacre of some 2,000 Tutsis who had sought refuge in a church in the eastern town of Kabarondo.

The prosecutor described the two men as "monsters," saying they were essential pieces in the local genocidal machine.

Both defendants denied any involvement in the murders.

Some 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists during the three months of the Rwandan genocide in spring 1994, according to U.N. figures. Dozens of survivors, relatives and witnesses, many of whom traveled from Rwanda, testified during the two-month trial. One survivor told the court she lost her seven children in the slaughter.

"It is for all these victims that we were fighting for nearly 20 years," said Alain Gauthier, president of a plaintiff association responsible for most of the investigations opened in France into the Rwandan genocide.

The decision "will send a signal" to all other suspected Rwandan criminals living in France that they too will probably appear in a criminal court one day, Gauthier said as the verdict was returned after nine hours of deliberation.

The trial was the second held in France for suspected perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. Unusually, the trial hearings were recorded for historical purposes.

Barahira, also known as Tite Barahirwa, and Ngenzi were arrested separately on French territory a few years ago and have been in custody since.

The first attacks against ethnic Tutsis by rival Hutus in the Kabarondo region started the day after then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed as his plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. In the following days, a growing number of Tutsis and some Hutus sought refuge in the town church and some 3,500 were inside the day before it was attacked.

On the morning of April 13, Barahira allegedly held a meeting in a nearby soccer stadium where local armed Hutus were ordered to "chase and kill ethnic Tutsis" throughout the town and especially at the church, except Tutsi women married to Hutu men, according to witnesses quoted in court documents.

Shortly after the meeting, a few hundred militiamen armed with machetes, spears, bows and arrows, bludgeons and studded clubs attacked the church. Then Rwandan armed forces arrived and used more powerful weapons against the people inside, including mortars, bombs and grenades.

"Shells were entering the church through the windows and roof, digging holes in the ground. Some people had their limbs torn apart," witness Jovithe Ryaka told investigators.

Once the door was smashed open, militiamen and soldiers entered the church to finish the wounded off with machetes and clubs and take those still alive outside. Witnesses said Barahira and Ngenzi were present at that time, conducting an "ethnic selection" of the survivors, inciting militiamen to execute those identified as Tutsis. Barahira was accused of killing some of them himself.

In 2014, the former head of the Rwandan intelligence service, Pascal Simbikangwa, was convicted in the first such trial in France of genocide and complicity of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He has appealed the verdict.