Genocide convicts do service

2005-09-26 16:58

Ryumba - Rwanda begun implementing community service for convicts who have served part of their sentences for involvement in the Central African nation's 1994 genocide, officials said.

Under the programme, several thousand former detainees will engage in public construction work, according to Emmanuel Twagiramukiza, a justice ministry official who launched the programme here north of Kigali on Sunday.

Twagiramukiza kicked off the programme in the central town of Ryumba in Gitarama province where nearly 800 former inmates will excavate stones for road construction.

In the town of Nyanza, in the neighboring province of Butare, more than 100 others will build low-cost housing for the poor.

"It is a way of making use of local materials as well as learning the skills of a new professsion," Twagiramukiza said.

Under the terms of the programme, a convict who has confessed to a minor role in the genocide and has served half of his prison term is allowed to finish off his sentence with three days of community service a week.

Last month, Rwanda released some 22 407 prisoners under President Paul Kagame's January 2003 decree ordering the release of detainees awaiting trial who had already served time equal to the sentences they would have received if convicted.

Some 800 000 people, mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were massacred by Hutu extremists during the genocide.

- AFP