{{A US jury deadlocked Tuesday on whether an elderly Rwandan immigrant committed genocide 17 years ago, convicting him only on a charge that he lied to US immigration officials.}}<\/p>\n
The verdict, coming at the end of a lengthy, expensive immigration trial, leaves uncertain the future of 84-year-old Lazare Kobagaya.
\nUS District Judge Monti Belot allowed Kobagaya to remain free on bail while a pre-sentencing report is prepared and defense attorneys file an expected appeal.<\/p>\n
Prosecution witnesses brought from Rwanda had testified that Kobagaya ordered people killed and beaten and their homes burned during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.<\/p>\n
One of two counts against Kobagaya alleged that he lied to US immigration officials when he denied participating in genocide.
\nThe eight-man, four-woman jury couldn’t reach an agreement on that count.<\/p>\n
Instead, they convicted Kobagaya of lying to immigration officials when he claimed to live in Burundi, not Rwanda, from 1993 to 1995.<\/p>\n
“As I understand it, they didn’t convict him on anything violent at all,” defense attorney Kurt Kerns said as he left the courthouse with Kobagaya and the defendant’s family.<\/p>\n
Kerns said he couldn’t comment further because of instructions from Judge Belot.<\/p>\n
US prosecutors declined comment about whether they intend to re-try Kobagaya on the deadlocked charged or attempt to deport him based on the conviction they obtained.<\/p>\n
According to most sources, 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda during a three-month period, most of them ethnic Tutsis slain by the majority Hutu group.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors claim that Kobagaya, a Hutu, contributed to the deaths of thousands of Tutsi, including personally ordering the murders of at least nine people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{A US jury deadlocked Tuesday on whether an elderly Rwandan immigrant committed genocide 17 years ago, convicting him only on a charge that he lied to US immigration officials.}} The verdict, coming at the end of a lengthy, expensive immigration trial, leaves uncertain the future of 84-year-old Lazare Kobagaya. US District Judge Monti Belot allowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"byline":[280],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","byline-igihe-com-reporter-and-agencies"],"bylines":[{"id":280,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter and agencies","slug":"igihe-com-reporter-and-agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":280,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter and agencies","slug":"igihe-com-reporter-and-agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}