Pair jailed over Rwandan genocide

A BRUSSELS court has sentenced two Rwandan businessmen to 10 and 12 years in prison after finding them guilty of war crimes and murder linked to the 1994 genocide in their country.

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The United Nations estimates that some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed throughout Rwanda in the 1994 genocide.

2 caught but i think there are plenty more running free out there





[edit on 1-7-2005 by Sth Hemisphere]

Leon Mugesera is in Canada but he is facing deportation to Rwanda. His speech is considered to be one of the things that sparked the genocide. He hasn't been tried yet, but he wants to have the trial in Canada, not Rwanda. He hasn't filed an appeal with Immigration on humanitarian grounds yet, but I'm sure he will.

Canada's highest court agreed unanimously with federal lawyers Tuesday that there are reasonable grounds to believe Mugesera promoted hatred, murder and genocide and committed a crime against humanity with a fiery 1992 speech in which he called on ethnic Hutus to "exterminate" their traditional Tutsi rivals.

Mugesera claimed he was only preaching self-defence against Tutsi aggression and that he wasn't counselling the slaughter of his opponents.

However, the court noted that he was "well aware of the dangerous state of affairs in Rwanda in the early 1990s."

As an educated man and prominent political activist "he would necessarily have known that a speech vilifying and encouraging acts of violence against the target group would have the effect of furthering the attack."

cnews.canoe.ca