Genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda: Claude Muhayimana sentenced to 14 years in prison
Franco-Rwandan Claude Muhayimana was sentenced Thursday, December 16, 2021 to 14 years in prison.
© Thomas Coex / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Franco-Rwandan Claude Muhayimana, 60, was sentenced Thursday, December 16 by the Paris Assize Court to 14 years of criminal imprisonment.
He was found guilty of complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in 1994 in the extermination of Tutsis in Rwanda.
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He is the first ordinary citizen to be tried and sentenced
in France
for having been involved in the Rwandan genocide.
Fifteen years of imprisonment had been required against Claude Muhayimana.
He was accused of having transported Hutu Interahamwe gendarmes and militiamen to Tutsi massacre sites between April and July 1994 in Kibuye and in the surrounding hills, in western Rwanda.
Claude Muhayimana spoke briefly at the very beginning of the morning before the jurors retired to deliberate: “
I would like you to try to put yourself in my place in 1994, which I did to save people.
"This is the thesis of the defense: the former hotel driver in the Kibuye region, today a road mender in Rouen in the north-west of France, would have transported killers under"
duress
"during the genocide Rwandan.
In his defense, he saved Tutsis.
His lawyers insisted on "
the weakness and the lack of credibility of the testimonies
".
An "actor of genocide"
The prosecution on the contrary considered that Claude Muhayimana was an "
actor of the genocide
", an "
essential cog in the device of this hunt for Tutsis
".
This man "
contributed to the genocide as a driver and transporter of the killers over a very long period of three months
", for his part declared the public prosecutor.
They cite in particular the testimonies of Rwandans heard by the court, genocide survivors, but also former killers detained in Rwanda and questioned by videoconference.
►Also read: The RFI Savoirs file on the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda
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