Rwanda Leader Gets 6 Years for Role in Genocide

The U.N. tribunal for Rwanda sentenced a former local leader to six years in prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty to a charge of extermination by omission under a plea bargain with prosecutors. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted Vincent Rutaganira of aiding and abetting the killings of ethnic Tutsis who came to hide in a church in Muguga, Kibuye province, between 8 and 15 April, 1994. "We find you guilty of 'crimes against humanity (extermination by omission)', for having aided and abetted attacks that resulted in the deaths and injuries within the church," Presiding Judge Andresia Vaz said in the court's first judgment this year. "We sentence you to six years in imprisonment. The sentence shall be enforced immediately," Vaz said. It was the shortest sentence handed down by the tribunal. The court was set up in 1995 to try suspected masterminds of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by extremist Hutus in 100 days in the tiny central African country. Rutaganira, 65, was the councilor for Mubuga, Kibuye, in western Rwanda during the genocide.  [more]