A Paris court on Wednesday sentenced a Rwandan former doctor to 27 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide in his home country.
Eugène Rwamucyo, 65, was found guilty of “complicity in genocide,” “complicity in crimes against humanity” and “conspiracy” to prepare the ground for those crimes. He was acquitted of the charges of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”
Several witnesses, including Angélique Uwamahoro who was 13 at the time, traveled to Paris to testify during the four-week trial. They gave graphic descriptions of the killings in the Butare region where Rwamucyo was present.
Uwamahoro said she saw Rwamucyo, who was her mother’s doctor, at the scene of a massacre in a convent where she and her family had found refuge. She also testified that she saw Rwamucyo at a road block in Butare, where he was encouraging militiamen to kill Tutsi people.
Other witnesses described mass graves and people being buried alive. Rwamucyo was accused of spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and supervising operations to bury victims in mass graves, though he denied survivors were buried alive and said his role was motivated by “hygiene-related” considerations.
This is the seventh trial related to the Rwandan genocide that has come to court in Paris in the past decade. The massacres saw more than 800,000 of Rwanda’s minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them killed by Hutu extremists, backed by the army and police.
Rwamucyo was arrested in a suburb north of Paris in 2010 while attending the funeral of Jean Bosco Baravagwiza, considered one of the masterminds of the genocide. The 27-year sentence handed down by the Paris court underscores the continued pursuit of justice for the crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
