A Swedish court of appeal on Thursday upheld a life prison sentence for Stanislas Mbanenande, the first person in Sweden to be convicted of genocide, for crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
The 55-year-old Swedish citizen of Rwandan origin was first sentenced by a Stockholm district court in June 2013 for a string of crimes, including murder and abduction, in connection with a large number of massacres.
Mbanenande was a civil engineer and university lecturer when the crimes were committed.
He and his family left Rwanda during the Genocide and he eventually moved to Sweden in 2007. He became a citizen in 2008.
He has denied all charges, and his defense team claimed in court that the investigation was fabricated and Mbanenande wrongfully accused.
The Swedish appellate court said that it found no reason to change the district court’s verdict, arguing that testimony from victims and witnesses was reliable even though the events took place 20 years ago during emotionally difficult and chaotic conditions.
“The Court of Appeals has concluded that the identifying testimonies, despite the long time that has passed, are so reliable that it is clear it is the defendant,” the Svea Court of Appeal, in Stockholm, said in a statement.
The defendant’s lawyer, Tomas Nilsson, said that Mbanenande would likely appeal to the supreme court. “We’re very critical of this ruling and believe the court of appeal hasn’t taken into account the particular difficulties regarding the evidence in this case,” he said.
The case covered multiple crimes at several different occasions. The appeal court said that it had overturned the verdict in one instance because of uncertainty over the perpetrator’s identity, but that it didn’t change the life sentence.
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