Rwandan is 1st woman convicted of genocide by a world court

Although other women have been similarly sentenced by local courts in Rwanda, the conviction of the former minister, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 65, stands out because of her position. The court found that as family minister, she had used her political power to help abduct and kill uncounted Tutsi men, women, and children in her home district of Butare in southern Rwanda.

The court said that in her region, she had issued orders to the feared Interahamwe, the Hutu militia, whose mission was to hunt and kill as many ethnic Tutsis as possible.

The three-month killing frenzy across Rwanda in summer 1994 left more than 500,000 people dead, most of them Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The government minister’s son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s and a student at the time, also was found guilty of helping to organize the massacres in Butare, where he had joined his mother and became a militia leader.

The court found that Ntahobali, together with militia and soldiers, had been stationed at one particular roadblock, near Hotel Ihuliro, that “earned the reputation of being one of the most terrifying roadblocks in Butare’’ and was “the site of numerous beatings, rapes, and killings.’’

Mother and son have said they were not guilty of any charges.

As the presiding judge read from a summary of the verdict, he described instances of Nyiramasuhuko and her son acting in tandem. For example, he said the two, accompanied by militia and soldiers, visited Butare government offices where many Tutsis had sought shelter.

The two went there “to abduct hundreds of Tutsis; many were physically assaulted, raped, abducted, and taken away to various places in Butare, where they were killed,’’ the judge said.

“Both Nyiramasuhuko and Ntahobali ordered killings,’’ he said. “They also ordered rapes. Ntahobali further committed rapes, and Nyiramasuhuko aided and abetted rapes and is responsible as a superior.’’

In earlier verdicts, the Rwanda tribunal had found that rape was used as part of genocide, but in this case they charged the counts of rape as a crime against humanity and a war crime.

The case against Nyiramasuhuko remains unusual in the history of modern UN tribunals, where female defendants have been rare.

She is the first woman to be found guilty by an international tribunal not only of genocide, but also of rape, because of her “responsibility as a superior.’’

Yesterday’s judgments concluded a trial that began 10 years ago, an uncommonly long time even by the standards of war crimes trials. The judges referred to it as a complex trial that was delayed because “10 other cases were interspersed with this case.’’

The judges said the court had heard from 189 witnesses and dealt with 13,000 pages of evidence.