'Genocide mayor' gets 11 years
2007-11-16 12:49
Arusha - A former mayor of a Rwandan town was sentenced to 11 years in prison for crimes against humanity during the country's genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, said court officials on Friday.
Juvenal Rugambarara, 48, a Hutu, pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity for not have taken necessary measures to punish those in his town who were implicated for massacring Tutsis.
The judge took into account the sincerity and remorse displayed by the former mayor of Bicumbi as well as the assistance he gave Tutsis during the genocide.
Rugambarara was arrested in Uganda in 2003 and told prosecutors he wished to do prison time in Europe, preferably France.
The ICTR, which sat in Arusha, Tanzania, was the main court responsible for judging primary suspects in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The United Nations estimated that at least 800 000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed at this time.
To date, the ICTR had condemned 29 people and acquitted five.