Rwanda genocide tribunal re-tries, sentences ex-military officer to 15 years for hate speech

Rwanda genocide court convicts ex-military officer

ARUSHA, Tanzania — A U.N. tribunal has re-tried a former high-level Rwandan military officer and sentenced him to 15 years in prison for inciting racial hatred during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Presiding Judge Dennis Byron says the court unanimously found former Lt. Col. Tharcisse Muvunyi guilty of exhorting a crowd to kill Tutsis and destroy their homes during the genocide that ripped through the Central African nation.

The tribunal, set up by the U.N. to try key suspects of the genocide, has now convicted 41 people and acquitted eight. Sixteen trials are ongoing. Muvunyi’s trial was the first re-trial.

At least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during Rwanda’s genocide, which began after President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was brought down in April 1994.