Rwanda: French court jails ex-driver Muhayimana for 14 years over genocide
PARIS— A French court on Thursday sentenced a former hotel driver to 14 years in jail over complicity in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide for involvement in transporting Hutu militiamen who massacred hundreds of Tutsis.
French-Rwandan Claude Muhayimana, 60, was found guilty of complicity in genocide and in crimes against humanity.
The verdict in the trial came after four weeks of proceedings involving around 50 witnesses, some of whom were flown in from Rwanda.
Muhayimana, who investigators say also hid Tutsis at risk of death and helped some escape, fled after the genocide and gained French nationality in 2010.
During the trial, the prosecutor had sought 15 years imprisonment, describing Muhayimana as “an opportunist” and accusing him of contributing to the genocide “by driving and transporting the killers over… three months”.
Muhayimana, who was married to a Tutsi woman at the time, has denied the charges.
In the trial, Muhayimana faced charged of genocide, complicity in genocide, and crimes against humanity all committed in the former Kibuye Prefecture in south western Rwanda, where he worked as a driver in 1994.
The prosecution initially requested that he be jailed 15 years but after deliberation by the jury, the 60-year-old will now face a 14-year sentence.
Richard Gisagara, a Rwandan lawyer based in France who has been following upon the case since it started, through his twitter handle, said this puts an end to an impunity that had lasted 27 years.
“Tonight he sleeps in prison. A very strong thought for the thousands of victims in Busesero and the neighbouring areas,” he added, referring to the over 50,000 Tutsi who were murdered in the Bisesero area in the current Karongi District.
Muhayimana was accused of participating in the massacre of the Tutsi in the Saint-Jean compound in Kibuye town and in Gatwaro stadium, where thousands were killed.
Kibuye, where tens of thousands of Tutsi were killed, was presumably among the areas protected under Operation Tourqouise, a military mission by French armed forces.
Muhayimana is the fourth Genocide convict tried and sentenced in France.
The first one is Pascal Simbikangwa, who was in 2014 sentenced to 25 years, followed by the joint trial of Tito Barahira and Octavien Ngenzi who were both handed life imprisonment in 2016.
France remains a haven for many masterminds of the Genocide in which over a million people were killed, including former First Lady Agatha Kanziga Habyarimana, a core member of Akazu, the small clique of elites who were at the heart of preparation of the massacre.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK