Genocide in Rwanda: a former Rwandan prefect sentenced in France to 20 years in prison for complicity

Published on: 07/12/2022 – 22:10 After nearly eleven hours of deliberation, the former Rwandan prefect Laurent Bucyibaruta was sentenced on Tuesday by the Paris Assize Court to 20 years in prison for complicity in genocide. The 78-year-old man was acquitted as a perpetrator of genocide. New conviction in France. A former Rwandan prefect, Laurent Bucyibaruta, was sentenced on Tuesday July 12 by the Paris Assize Court to 20 years’ imprisonment for complicity in genocide, more than 28 years after the extermination of the Tutsi in Rwanda. official, aged 78, was acquitted as a perpetrator of genocide but found guilty as an accomplice to genocide and crimes against humanity for four massacres, after nearly eleven hours of deliberation.Laurent Bucyibaruta, who appeared free under judicial supervision since May 9, will spend the night in prison. He was escorted by gendarmes shortly after the verdict was announced.>> To read also: “A Franco-Rwandan sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment for complicity” considering it complicit in a massacre of Tutsi and author of four others in his prefecture of Gikongoro. This region of southern Rwanda was one of the most affected by the genocide which killed at least 800,000 people in the country between April and July 1994, according to the UN. The court totally acquitted Laurent Bucyibaruta of the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed at the parish of Kibeho on April 14, 1994, as well as those concerning the executions of Tutsi prisoners at the prison of Gikongoro. Ten days to appeal She recognized him as an accomplice in genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacres of the school under construction in Murambi and the parishes of Cyanika and Kaduha, all committed on April 21, 1994. Laurent Bucyibaruta is also He was convicted of complicity in these crimes for the executions of students at the Marie Merci school in Kibeho, and those committed during patrols and roadblocks. His defense pleaded for acquittal. In his last words to the court before it retired to deliberate, Laurent Bucyibaruta insisted that he had “never been on the side of the killers”. He was the highest Rwandan official ever tried in France for crimes related to the genocide of the Tutsi, after the final convictions of a military officer and two mayors, and the conviction at first instance of a driver who appealed. Laurent Bucyibaruta himself has ten days to appeal his conviction. With AFP