Rwandan’s genocide conviction overturned

November 17, 2009|Associated Press

ARUSHA, Tanzania - A UN appeals court overturned the conviction yesterday of the former Rwandan president’s brother-in-law, who had been sentenced to 20 years for organizing a massacre that left about 1,000 dead during the 1994 genocide.

The judge said that serious errors had been committed during Protais Zigiranyirazo’s 2008 conviction and sentencing, and ordered him to be released immediately.

Zigiranyirazo, 71, stood in disbelief in the courtroom yesterday. “God is great and justice has been done,’’ he told the Associated Press after the judge overturned the sentence.

At least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during Rwanda’s genocide, which began after President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was brought down in April 1994. Zigiranyirazo, an influential member of the Rwandan government at the time, was his brother-in-law.

In a 30-page ruling, the appeals court said it had reversed Zigiranyirazo’s convictions for genocide and crimes against humanity because the verdicts had “violated the most basic and fundamental principles of justice.’’

Judge Theodor Meron said the trial judgment had “seriously erred in its handling of the evidence.’’

According to the indictment, Zigiranyirazo was accused of leading a convoy that attacked Tutsis who were seeking refuge on a hill a few days after the genocide began.

About 1,000 people were killed and the convoy later returned to attack survivors, the indictment said.

Zigiranyirazo also was accused of ordering people to set up roadblocks as part of a campaign to kill Tutsis and of paying people to dig a mass grave.