18.06.09 - RWANDA/GACACA - GACACA: EX-MAYOR GETS 25 YEARS JAIL FOR HIS ROLE IN 1994 GENOCIDE

Arusha, 18 June 2009 (FH) - A former Mayor of central Rwanda, Emmanuel Ruzigana, was sentenced on Tuesday to 25 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide, reported government-owned Radio Rwanda on Wednesday.

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He was found guilty of planning and executing the genocide, the radio added.

Now 50 years old, the former mayor of Nyamabuye, in the former prefecture of Gitarama (central Rwanda), in prison for the last 13 years, had been tried by semi-popular gacaca court.

During his trial, he had admitted to have passively supported for the massacres of mainly ethnic Tutsis.

He had denied transporting bodies of Tutsis to be drowned into the Nyabarongo River.

The gacaca courts are charged with trying alleged authors of the genocide in 1994.  However, the courts are not presided by professional judges, but by people of high esteem from the society.

They can deliver sentences up to life in prison in isolation, the maximum sentence in Rwanda since the abolition of capital punishment in 2007.

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