The Hirondelle News Agency reports that on 24 June 2011, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko (65), the only woman ever to have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for genocide and crimes against humanity, was sentenced to life imprisonment after having been found guilty for her participation in the 1994 genocide.
Nyiramasuhuko, former Rwandan Minister for Family and Women Affairs, and her son Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, a former mayor, were found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity of extermination, rape and persecution, and war crimes. Nyiramasuhuko was also convicted for conspiracy to commit genocide.
‘’For these crimes and considering all relevant circumstances, the Chamber sentences you Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life imprisonment,’’ declared Tanzanian Presiding Judge, William Sekule as Nyiramasuhuko herself was on her feet listening to the verdict.
‘’Both Nyiramasuhuko and Ntahobali ordered killings. They also ordered rape. Ntahobali further commited rape, and Nyiramasuhuko aided and abetted rape and was responsible as a superior for rape committed by members of Interahamwe,’’ the verdict elaborated as it was being read.
The Chamber found that between April and mid-June, 1994, Nyiramasuhuko and Ntahobali ordered Interahamwe and soldiers to go to Butare prefecture offices to physically assault, rape and take away hundreds of Tutsis to various places in Butare to be killed.
Former mayor of Muganza commune in Butare prefecture, Eli Ndayambaje, was also given a sentence of life imprisonment. Ndayambaje was convicted of genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity of extermination and persecution and violence to life as a war crime.
Three other individuals in the trial known as the ‘’Butare Trial’’ are two former prefects of Butare, Alphonse Nteziryayo and Sylvain Nsabimana sentenced to 30 and 25 years respectively, and former mayor Joseph Kanyabashi of Ngoma commune, sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
The judgment comes 10 years after the commencement of the trial on June 12, 2001, 16 years after the arrests of some of the accused and more than two years after the case was officially closed.
Convicts were given credit for the time already spent in detention since their arrests.
Kanyabashi and Ndayambaje were arrested on June 28, 1995 in Belgium while Nyiramasuhuko and Nsabimana were arrested on July 18, 1997 in Nairobi. Ntahobali was arrested six days later in the same East African country. Nteziryayo was apprehended on April 24, 1998, in Burkina Faso.
To hear Anne-Marie de Brouwer discuss the case and the sentence on Dutch TV, click here.
