Rwandan genocide: perpetuity confirmed on appeal for two former mayors tried in France

Paris – Two former Rwandan bourgmestres Friday saw their conviction for life imprisonment confirmed in appeal by the French courts for their participation in the genocide of Tutsi in their village of Kabarondo, in eastern Rwanda, in April 1994 .
  

At the end of two months of a trial filmed for history before the Assize Court of Paris, Octavien Ngenzi, 60, and Tito Barahira, 67, were found guilty of " crimes against humanity "and" genocide ", for" a massive and systematic practice of summary executions "in application of a" concerted plan tending to the destruction "of the Tutsi ethnic group.

The verdict was met with silence, barely disturbed by the discreet sobs of the family of the accused. The two former burgomasters remained stoic, quickly surrounded by their lawyers.

They have five days to file a cassation appeal.

The prosecution had designated the accused as " craftsmen of the death " having " full authority " in their village, essential cogs of the genocide in their commune of Kabarondo. A period of two-thirds security was also requested for Ngenzi, burgomaster in office in 1994 and as such " responsible for all the deaths of the commune ".

The two men, who succeeded each other at the head of the commune from 1976 to 94, denied to the very end any participation in the killings in Kabarondo, where the worst of the massacres took place on April 13 in the church. Nearly 2,000 dead, according to the abbot, pounded with mortar, then cut with a machete, for nearly seven hours.

" This decision is right and it is a message: stop impunity for all those who took part in the genocide and who believed to be able to take refuge in France ", reacted Alain Gauthier , president of an association at the origin of most French investigations into the Rwandan genocide.

This is the second time that French justice, which has tried these men under its universal jurisdiction for the most serious crimes, pronounces in a case related to the Rwandan genocide, after the conviction of the former captain of the army, Pascal Simbikamgwa, to 25 years of criminal imprisonment.