A French court has sentenced a former Rwandan doctor, Sosthene Munyemana, to 24 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 genocide.
On Wednesday, Munyemana was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and participating in a conspiracy related to these crimes. The 68-year-old ex-gynaecologist was accused of assisting in drafting a letter for the interim government overseeing the killings of Tutsis.
Additionally, he was alleged to have taken part in meetings organizing the rounding up of Tutsi civilians in the southern Rwandan prefecture of Butare, where he resided during that period. Munyemana, who relocated to France months after the genocide concluded, denied any wrongdoing, and his legal team plans to appeal the verdict.
Throughout the six-week trial at the Assize Court in Paris, the public prosecutor had sought a 30-year jail sentence.
Meanwhile, in Brussels on Tuesday, a court found two other Rwandans, Séraphin Twahirwa and Pierre Basabosé, guilty of genocide and war crimes committed in their homeland. The court determined that they were involved in multiple murders and attempted murders of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Kigali between April and July 1994. Sentencing for Twahirwa and Basabosé is scheduled for Thursday.
