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'Genocide' doctor gets 15 years
06/02/2008 14:21 - (SA)
Kigali - A Rwandan doctor and one-time possible presidential candidate has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for his role in the country's 1994 genocide, say human rights groups.
Theoneste Niyitegeka, who had wanted to run for president in 2003, was found guilty and sentenced on Tuesday by a traditional "gacaca" court on appeal, according to rights groups such as the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (Liprodhor).
The doctor, who was arrested after the verdict, had been accused of complicity with the Hutu militias who killed Tutsi patients while he worked at the Kabgayi hospital in central Rwanda in 1994.
He was specifically accused of chasing sick Tutsis from the hospital and thereby leaving them prey to the Hutu killers who had set up a roadblock at the entrance to the medical centre.
The doctor had been acquitted at his first trial in October, but the case was then appealed.
Gacaca courts were set up to try most of those accused of participating in the Hutu-led genocide, which killed some 800 000 people, according to the United Nations. Most of the victims were from the minority Tutsi tribe.
Judges were elected from within the community to sit on nine-member panels in gacaca sessions to hear and record testimonies from community members who saw and witnessed what happened during the genocide.
They then presided over trials of genocide suspects in their own villages. Niyitegeka had attempted to run as an independent in the 2003 presidential election, but his candidacy was approved by the electoral commission.
- AFP
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