Former Rwandan minister gets life sentence

23 Jan, 2004

Rwandan former minister Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda was Thursday sentenced to life in jail for genocide and crimes against humanity by a special UN tribunal that sits in Tanzania.
Kamuhanda, 51, who served as minister of higher education, scientific research and culture at the time of the mass ethnic slaughter in Rwanda in 1994, was found guilty of two of the eight charges against him: genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, according to independent Hirondelle news agency.
His face displayed no visible reaction when the verdict - "imprisonment for the remainder of his life" - was read out at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
He was accused of having personally led attacks by soldiers and militia against Tutsi civilians who had taken refuge in a church in Gikomero, central Rwanda, during the genocide, which claimed up to a million lives over 100 days in 1994.

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