Arusha, September 8, 2014 (FH) \u2013 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will hand down its appeals judgment on September 29 in the case of two former Rwandan political party leaders, Hirondelle learned on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Matthieu Ngirumpatse was president of the MRND party, while Edouard Karemera was its vice-president. The MRND was the party of former head of state Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana, whose assassination on April 4, 1994 sparked the genocide. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The two men were sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court in December 2011 after it found them guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. <\/p>\n
According to the first-instance judgment, they neither tried to prevent nor to condemn the crimes committed in 1994 by the youth wing of their party, the notorious Interahamwe of the MRND. <\/p>\n
Addressing the court during appeals hearings in February, Ngirumpatse\u2019s defence lawyer Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Weyl argued that the former MRND president had \u201cno authority\u201d over party members or government ministers in office during the genocide. <\/p>\n
\u201cMatthieu Ngirumpatse had no judicial, police or military power (\u2026),\u201d said Weyl. \u201cHe did not have the power to expel or sanction anyone (\u2026) A political party is different from a government or military structure.\u201d Weyl called for the court to acquit his client. <\/p>\n
F\u00e9lix Sow, one of Karemera\u2019s two Senegalese lawyers, argued along similar lines. He also called on the appeals court to \u201coverturn all the convictions\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ugandan prosecutor George Mugwanya told the court that the two men had a common agenda to kill Tutsis. He said that they had abused their positions within the MRND as part of a joint criminal enterprise.<\/p>\n
The trial started in November 2003 but was subject to many delays, owing mainly to Ngirumpatse\u2019s health problems. <\/p>\n
The two MRND leaders initially went on trial with the party\u2019s former secretary general <\/p>\n
Joseph Nzirorera and former Education Minister Andr\u00e9 Rwamakuba, who was a member of an opposition party to President Habyarimana. <\/p>\n
But Rwamakuba\u2019s case was finally separated and he was acquitted on September 20, 2006. Nzirorera died of illness on June 1, 2010, when his trial was near the end of the defence stage. <\/p>\n
ER\/ JC<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arusha, September 8, 2014 (FH) \u2013 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will hand down its appeals judgment on September 29 in the case of two former Rwandan political party leaders, Hirondelle learned on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-24891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n