A French court sentenced former senior Rwandan official Laurent Bucyibaruta to 20 years in prison on Tuesday after holding him responsible for the genocide in that African country.
The highest-ranking Rwandan to go on trial in France for the 1994 atrocities, which resulted in an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dying over the course of 100 days, is Bucyibaruta.
A number of “security” meetings that Bucyibaruta either ordered or attended and which the prosecution claimed were actually planning sessions for the killings were at the center of the case against the 78-year-old.
Particularly, it was said that the former prefect of the southern province of Gikongoro had lured hundreds of people to seek shelter inside the Murambi Technical School by promising them food, drink, and safety.
Tens of thousands of Tutsis were executed there a few days later, in the early hours of April 21, in one of the worst incidents of the genocide.
In addition, the court looked into Bucyibaruta’s role in the slaughter of about 90 Tutsi students at the Marie Merci school in Kibeho on May 7, 1994, as well as the execution of Tutsi detainees, including three priests, in Gikongoro jail.
Bucyibaruta denied any involvement in the killings during his prosecution.
“I was never on the side of the killers,” Bucyibaruta told the court as his trial ended on Tuesday.
In an apparent message to genocide survivors, he said: “I want to tell them that the thought of leaving them to the killers never entered my mind.”
He added: “Did I lack courage? Could I have saved them? Those questions, those regrets even, have been haunting me for over 28 years.”
The court should make “a brave choice” and acquit him, his attorneys had pleaded.
More than 100 witnesses testified during the trial, some of them were Rwandan survivors, either in person or via video conference.
Due to a number of health issues, Bucyibaruta, who has been a resident of France since 1997, was permitted to continue receiving treatment while under house arrest during his trial.
Activists have long pressed France to take action against alleged Rwandan culprits who fled to France after the country’s invasion.
The Hutu regime was supported by the French government for a long time at the time of the genocide, which resulted in decades of hostility between the two nations.
A separate French investigation into the incident in which Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down and started the genocide was concluded earlier this year.
Investigators had a suspicion that the aircraft was attacked as it touched down in the Rwandan capital by rebels operating under the leadership of Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame, who is currently Rwanda’s president.