A French court has sentenced a former Rwandan doctor, Sosthene Munyemana, to 24 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide. The 68-year-old ex-gynecologist was convicted on Wednesday of charges including genocide, crimes against humanity, and involvement in a conspiracy to plan these atrocities.
Munyemana was accused of assisting in drafting a letter for the interim government that oversaw the mass killings of Tutsis. Additionally, he was alleged to have taken part in meetings that coordinated the roundups of Tutsi civilians in the southern Rwandan prefecture of Butare, where he resided at the time.
Despite the accusations, Munyemana, who had relocated to France a few months after the genocide, maintained his innocence.
However, prosecutors argued that Munyemana locked people inside the office in inhumane conditions before they were ultimately taken away to be killed.
His legal team has announced plans to appeal the verdict.
Throughout the six-week trial at the Assize Court in Paris, the public prosecutor had sought a 30-year sentence for Munyemana. The court ultimately handed down a 24-year prison term.
In 2008, Munyemana, who had worked in a hospital at Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwest France for ten years, had his asylum request rejected by France. However, in 2010, it rejected an extradition request from Rwanda after Munyemana’s lawyers presented arguments stating that he would not receive a fair trial in that country. In 2011, a French court charged a father of three with suspicion of his involvement in the 1994 genocide.
In a separate legal development, a Brussels court on Tuesday found two Rwandans, Séraphin Twahirwa and Pierre Basabosé, guilty of genocide and war crimes committed in Rwanda. The charges included multiple murders and attempted murders of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Kigali between April and July 1994.
The sentencing for Twahirwa and Basabosé is scheduled for Thursday.
