ICTR: Ndahimana collapsed in his chair after being sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced, Monday, 16th December 2013, to 25 years in prison, a former mayor who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the first instance.

Grégoire Ndahimana, 60, is convicted of Genocide crimes and Extermination of Tutsis during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.

During the Genocide, Ndahimana was the Mayor of Kivumu commune in prefecture of Kibuye today the Western province of Rwanda.

“The Appeals Chamber, sitting in an open court cancels the sentence of 15 years in prison and imposed a sentence of 25 years imprisonment,” said Judge Theodor Meron while reading an English summary of the judgment.

The five judges of Appeal upheld his conviction for genocide and extermination (crimes against humanity), but with a form of greater responsibility.

The Trial Chamber sentenced him for not sanctioned communal policemen who were involved in the attack against the Tutsi refugees at Nyange Catholic church. It was on 15 April 1994.

He was also convicted of “tacit approval” of the destruction of the church building the following day.

The Nyange church was demolished with a bulldozer, April 16, and burying nearly 2,000 Tutsis who were there.

To the Appeals Chamber, the former mayor was indeed led by the genocidal intent and acted “within the framework of a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) to exterminate the Tutsis in the commune of Kivumu.”

The judgment emphasizes that Ndahimana and other dignitaries of the place shared beer, by way of jubilation after the destruction of the church. After reading the judgment, the former mayor who was standing in the courtroom, collapsed suddenly in his chair. For his part, his wife, Esther, present in the court could not hold back her tears.

Ndahimana was arrested in August 10, 2009 in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and transferred to the detention center of the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania, 11 days later. His trial began Sept. 6, 2010. He is the third person convicted by the ICTR for the killing of Nyange church after the former priest of this parish Seromba and businessman Gaspard Kanyarukiga