RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to six years in jail

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ARUSHA, 14 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced a former Rwandan civic leader on Monday to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Vincent Rutaganira, 60, is the fourth man to have pleaded guilty to genocide before the tribunal, set up by the UN Security Council in November 1994 following the April-July genocide in which 937,000 people were killed, according to Rwandan government estimates.

Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was the first to plead guilty before the tribunal. He is serving a life sentence in Mali.

A journalist and the only non-Rwandan convicted by the tribunal, Georges Ruggiu, a Belgian, was the second to plead guilty to genocide before the UN court. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Rwandan businessman Omar Serushago was the third; he is also serving a 15-year prison sentence in Mali.

Rutaganira, a former councillor for Mubuga Commune in Rwanda's western province of Kibuye, entered a guilty plea when he appeared before the tribunal in December 2004.

Judge Andresia Vaz, presiding, ruled that Rutaganira was guilty of the crime against humanity by extermination.

However, she said Rutaganira's sentence would take into account the three years he had already served in the UN detention facility in Arusha. Therefore, he will only serve three years of the sentence.

Rutaganira, a diabetic father of 10 children, was arrested in March 2002 in a refugee camp in northwestern Tanzania after he surrendered to the tribunal's authorities. Initially, he faced 19 counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, but these were later reduced to seven and finally, to one count of crimes against humanity (extermination) after he entered into a guilty-plea bargain with the tribunal's Office of the Prosecutor.

Under this deal, Rutaganira acknowledged full culpability for the deaths of thousands of Tutsi civilians who took refuge at Mubuga Church in Kibuye on 8-15 April 1994.

He admitted that he took no action to protect the Tutsi refugees in the commune where he was a government official during the genocide.

Rutaganira's conviction brings the number of suspects already sentenced to 24, including three acquittals.

The special representative of the Rwandan government to the tribunal, Aloys Mutabingwa, said Rutaganira's admission of guilt demonstrated his willingness to express remorse.

"He showed courage by admitting to what happened in Rwanda and this helps in reconciliation," he said.

[ENDS]