French court jails Rwandan former doctor 24 years over 1994 genocide

A French court condemned former Rwandan doctor Sosthene Munyemana to 24 years in prison on Wednesday for his role in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in his home East African country.

After over 15 hours of deliberation, the 68-year-old former gynaecologist was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and complicity in a conspiracy to commit those crimes.

He is the sixth person to stand trial in France for the 1994 atrocities, which killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the course of 100 days.

The six-week trial at the Paris Assize Court began nearly three decades after a complaint against Munyemana was made in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux in 1995.

Munyemana, who remained silent while the decision was read, was immediately imprisoned.

His attorneys announced plans to appeal the verdict, calling the court’s decision “unacceptable.” They claimed that numerous inconsistencies in the defence testimony created “room for doubt.”

The public prosecutor had requested a 30-year sentence, claiming that the “sum total” of his choices demonstrated “the traits of a genocidaire.”

Munyemana was accused of assisting in the creation of a letter of support for the interim administration, which promoted the slaughter of Tutsis.

He was also accused of helping set up roadblocks to round people up and keeping them in inhumane conditions in local government offices before they were killed in the southern Rwandan prefecture of Butare, where he lived at the time.

During the trial, Munyemana repeatedly disputed the accusations, claiming he had been a moderate Hutu who had tried to “save” Tutsis by offering them “refuge” in local government offices.

‘Organised and steered the genocide’

Reading the verdict, the judge said Munyemana was part of a group that “prepared, organised and steered the genocide of the Tutsis… on a daily basis”.

After arriving in France in September 1994, where his wife was already living, the father of three rebuilt his life in the country’s southwest, first as an emergency doctor and then as a geriatrician.

He recently retired.

Munyemana was close to Jean Kambanda, prime minister of the interim government established after the plane carrying then-president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down by a missile in 1994.

Kambanda is currently serving a life sentence imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for his role in the genocide.

Munyemana’s case is the latest trial in France of alleged participants in the massacres, in which around 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered over 100 days by Hutu soldiers and extremist militias, according to UN figures.

France has been one of the top destinations for those implicated in the Rwandan slaughter fleeing justice at home.

It has long been under pressure from activists to act against suspected Rwandan perpetrators who took refuge on French soil.

The French government at the time of the genocide had been a long-standing backer of the Hutu regime in power, a fact that has caused decades of tensions between the countries since.

Under President Paul Kagame, Rwanda has accused Paris of being unwilling to extradite genocide suspects or bring them to justice.

Among those tried and convicted in France are a former spy chief, two ex-mayors and a former hotel chauffeur.