France jails former policeman for genocide
A court in Paris sentenced a 66-year-old former military police officer from Rwanda, Philippe Hategekimana, to life imprisonment on Wednesday for his role in the 1994 genocide in his native country.
Hategekimana has been on trial since May 10 for killing hundreds of Tutsis as well as the mayor of Ntyazo and a nun while working as a senior police officer in the southern provincial capital of Nyanza. He was accused of murdering 300 Tutsis on Nyamugari Hill and launching an attack on Nyabubare Hill, where approximately 1,000 civilians were killed.
He reportedly fled to France after the genocide, obtaining refugee status and later French citizenship in 2005 under the name Philippe Manier. He was arrested in Yaounde in 2018 and extradited to Paris after fleeing to Cameroon in 2017 in response to a complaint filed by one of the plaintiffs.
Hategekimana denied participating in the massacre during his trial last week, claiming that he was in Kigali, in charge of a colonel's security, at the time of the massacre on Nyabubare hill.
"For more than five years, I've been subjected to unjust accusations and harsh detention. My family has been destroyed, my life ruined," he is quoted by the outlet Justice Info as saying.
On Wednesday, the court found him guilty of almost all of the charges brought against him.
Prosecutors said he played a key role in carrying out the killings, not only in committing murders but also in inciting others to kill their victims.
His was the fifth trial in France of an alleged participant in the genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It took place between April and July of 1994, over a 100-day period.
A Rwandan-born doctor who has lived in France since 1994 is also scheduled to stand trial before the end of the year.
