ARUSHA — Justice has finally caught up with Rwanda’s former army chief Augustin Bizimungu 17 years after the genocide ended.
The ruthless former army general has been sentenced to 30 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which found him guilty on six counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, extermination and rape.
Some estimated 800 000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the 1994 killings, arguably the worst genocide act in African history.
Bizimungu had managed to escape capture for eight years, until he was caught with Unita rebels in Angola in 2002.
At the time, he topped a list of wanted genocide suspects, for whom the United States government had offered a reward of up to $5 million. His trial, at the United Nations’ war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, lasted another nine years.
Bizimungu, 59, appeared unmoved when the judge ruled that, as army chief he had complete control over the soldiers and extremist militia who carried out the killings.
His indictment stretched to 56 pages and took two-and-a-half hours to read out.
It said he had conspired to exterminate the Tutsi population. The indictment said he prepared lists of ethnic Tutsis to be exterminated, referring to them as “cockroaches” – a term widely used by those carrying out the slaughter to dehumanise their victims.
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Bizimungu pleaded not guilty on all counts, but the judges in the Tanzanian town of Arusha did not believe him. — News Agencies
