By Chris Muhizi for Minembwe Capital News Thursday June 29th/2023.
On Wednesday, a Paris court sentenced a former member of the Rwandan military police to life in prison after finding him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the massacre in his own country in 1994.
The court declared that it had convicted Philippe Hategekimana, 66, guilty of almost all the accusations made against him.
After the massacre, he fled to France, where he was granted refugee status before becoming a French citizen and going by the name Philippe Manier.
Hategekimana’s trial, which started last month, was the fifth trial of an alleged participant in the atrocities to be held in France.
According to UN statistics, more than 800,000 people were slaughtered between April and July 1994, the majority of them were members of the Tutsi minority.
Hategekimana was charged by the plaintiffs with “using the powers and military force conferred upon him by his rank in order to… participate in the genocide.”
A former espionage head, two former mayors, a former hotel chauffeur, and an ex-top official have all been tried and found guilty in identical trials in France since 2014, one of the leading destinations for fugitives from the massacres.
The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, accused Paris of denying Rwanda jurisdiction after it typically rejected requests to extradite criminals to his country.
On March 30, an international warrant issued by French judges who specialize in crimes against humanity led to Philippe Hategekimana’s arrest in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.
Former Rwandan espionage head Pascal Simbikangwa was found guilty of genocide and involvement in crimes against humanity, and he was sentenced to 25 years in jail in the first French trial related to the genocide.
As a result of Paris’ assistance and military instruction for the ethnic Hutu forces who committed the majority of the killings, the genocide has produced 20 years of hostility between France and Rwanda.