The Tanzania-based UN tribunal (ICTR) has convicted former public service Minister Prosper Mugiraneza and the then trade minister Justin Mugenzi of complicity to committing genocide and incitement to commit genocide.
The tribunal however acquitted two other ministers – Casimir Bizimungu and Jérôme-Clément Bicamumpaka – due to lack of evidence. The judges ordered their immediate release.
Judge Emile Short issued a dissenting opinion on the sentence, saying Mugiraneza and Mugenzi deserved a reduction of five years for violation of right to trial without undue delay.
The four men were members of an interim government that ran the country after president Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. The 1994 Genocide claimed over I million Tutsis.
Demanding life sentences for the four men in November 2008, prosecutors said the ministers blazed a path to hell for Tutsis.
“They had no intention to stop the massacres.” On the contrary, prosecutor Paul Ng’arua told the judges.
“They poured oil on the flames through incendiary speeches, some of which were relayed on the notorious Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) radio station. The prosecutors main argument was that wherever the ministers went “they were soon followed by blood-letting and displacement of Tutsi populations,”
In a telephone interview with igihe.com correspondents Bosco Siboyintore in charge of Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit said that negotiations for appeal are underway in reference to the case in which the two suspects (Casimir Bizimungu and Jérôme-Clément Bicamumpaka) were acquitted.
“We are waiting for the court submission so that we can analyze and see what the court base on in acquitting Casimir Bizimungu and Jérôme-Clément Bicamumpaka since they claimed lack of evidence pinning the two individuals,” Siboyintore
“In case we find clauses contrary to our understandings, we have up to 30days to appeal against the decision of the court” narrated in a telephone interview.
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