A court in France has sentenced a Rwandan former doctor to 27 years in jail for crimes relating to the 1994 genocide in his country.
Eugène Rwamucyo was found guilty of complicity in genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity and of conspiring to prepare for those crimes by spreading propaganda and attempting to cover up evidence of mass murder.
The 65-year-old – who was acquitted of charges of genocide and crimes against humanity – denied any wrongdoing. Local media reported that his lawyers said they intended to appeal.
His trial was the eighth in France relating to the genocide in 1994, when an estimated 800,000 people were killed.
Ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were targeted in the 100-day massacre by Hutu extremists.
Prosecuting lawyer Nicolas Peron said there was no evidence to show Rwamucyo personally carried out summary executions or acts of torture.
But he said the former medic should not “escape his responsibilities” as one can “kill with words”.
Prosecutors accused Rwamucyo, born to a Hutu family, of disseminating anti-Tutsi propaganda.
They also quoted witness statements, which accused him of helping bury victims in mass graves “in a final effort to destroy evidence of genocide”.
The prosecution had requested he be jailed for 30 years, while representatives for survivors had called on him to be imprisoned for life.
Angélique Uwamahoro, who was 13 during the genocide, said she saw Rwamucyo at a road block in the southern town of Butare and heard him encouraging militiamen to kill Tutsi people, according to the Associated Press news agency.
“He wanted to incite them to kill us so we don’t get out alive,” she said.
But Rwamucyo told the court: “I assure you that I did not order the killing of the survivors nor did I allow them to be killed.”
His lawyers argued his involvement in burials in mass graves was because he wanted to avoid a “health crisis” that would have occurred if they had not been buried.
They said he was being prosecuted for disagreeing with the current government in Rwanda.
In 2009, Rwamucyo was handed a life jail term in absentia by a local court in Rwanda. A French court rejected Rwanda’s extradition request.
He was arrested in Sannois, north of Paris, in 2010 after attending the funeral of a former Rwandan official convicted for war crimes during the genocide.
In December, former doctor Sosthene Munyemana was jailed for 24 years by a French court for crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. He was accused of organising torture and killings in the genocide.