He had been acquitted on first hearing earlier this year.
The appeal court found him guilty of planning, supervising and executing genocide, drawing lists of Tutsis to be killed, and distributing weapons, according to sources who attended the trial. He was also convicted for complicity in murders.
The gacaca courts, adapted from a form of Rwandan traditional justice, are tasked with trying suspected perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide which left some 800,000 people dead, according to the UN. These village courts, whose judges are elected from the community, can hand down sentences up to life imprisonment.
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© Hirondelle News Agency