Sosthene Munyemana, a former doctor from Rwanda, was sentenced to 24 years in prison by a French court on Wednesday for his role in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in his home East African nation.
The 68-year-old former gynecologist was convicted guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and involvement in a conspiracy to plan those crimes following a nearly 15-hour trial.
He is the sixth person to go on trial in France in relation to the 1994 atrocities, which resulted in the mass murder of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the course of 100 days.
The trial, which lasted six weeks, took place at the Assize Court in Paris. The accusation against Munyemana was made in 1995 in the city of Bordeaux in southwest France, over thirty years earlier.
Munyemana was put in jail right away as the verdict was announced; he was apathetic throughout.
His attorneys declared that they will file an appeal, calling the court’s ruling “unacceptable.” Major discrepancies in the defense witnesses’ testimony, they claimed, created “room for doubt.”
The public prosecutor had requested a 30-year sentence, claiming that the “sum total” of his decisions demonstrated “the traits of a genocidaire.”
Munyemana was charged with contributing to the writing of a letter endorsing the then-interim administration, which in turn aided in inciting the Tutsi slaughter.
In the southern Rwandan prefecture of Butare, where he was living at the time, he was also charged with aiding in the installation of roadblocks to pick up individuals and holding them in cruel conditions in local government offices prior to their execution.
Munyemana refuted the charges several times during the trial, saying he was a moderate Hutu who had attempted to “save” Tutsis by providing them with “refuge” in local government buildings.
“Orchestrated and directed the genocide” – The court stated during the reading of the verdict that Munyemana belonged to a gang that “organized, planned, and guided the killing of the Tutsis… on a daily basis.”
The father of three rebuilt his life in the southwest of France after moving there in September 1994, moving there with his wife already settled there. He worked as an emergency physician for a while before becoming a geriatrician.
He just went into retirement.
Munyemana had a tight relationship with Jean Kambanda, the prime minister of the transitional administration that was put in place in 1994 following the missile-blasted downing of Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane.
As a result of his involvement in the genocide, Kambanda was given a life sentence by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
According to UN estimates, Hutu army and extremist militias massacred almost 800,000 people over the course of 100 days, the majority of them were ethnic Tutsis. Munyemana’s case is the most recent prosecution in France of those accused of taking part in the atrocities.
One of the most popular places for people involved in the genocide in Rwanda to escape domestic punishment has been France.
Acting against alleged offenders from Rwanda who sought sanctuary on French territory has been under constant criticism from activists.
Tensions between the two countries had existed for decades because the French government, at the time of the genocide, had long supported the Hutu regime in power.
Rwanda has charged that under President Paul Kagame, Paris is hesitant to extradite or prosecute genocide perpetrators.
A former espionage head, two former mayors, and a former hotel chauffeur are among those prosecuted and found guilty in France.
