The Netherlands has for the first time tried and sentenced to life in prison Joseph Mpambara for the crimes of genocide committed in Rwanda in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Mpambara is the first Rwandan to be tried in the Netherlands for genocide crime and other crimes against humanity which were perpetrated against Tutsi and claimed over a Million lives within a short period of a hundred days.
The Hague court in March 2009 found Joseph Mpambara guilty of ordering the murder of several Tutsi refugees. He was convicted to 20years in prison but he appealed aganist the verdict.
Mpambara was also found guilty of torturing a German doctor, his Tutsi wife and their two months old son by threatening and detaining them at a roadblock on the bridge over the Kiboga River as they tried to flee the country.
Mpambara was also charged with killing dozens of Tutsis who fled to the church complex of the Seventh-Day Adventists in Mugonero, as well as the rape of four women.
But the judges said they found inconsistencies in the testimonies of five key witnesses linking Mpambara to the massacre.
This ruling was confirmed by the head of the Genocide fugitive tracking unit Jean-Bosco Siboyintore who welcomed the decision.
Siboyintore told journalists that the Rwandan prosecution had carried out investigations in Mugonero and gathered compelling evidence against Mpambara. Later he was indicted by the genocide fugitive tracking unit.
Siboyintore said they expected the convicting verdict against the accused for he had even been previously sentenced to 20 years in prison by the first instance court in Netherlands.
The decision at the time was appealed and court officials recorded implicating statements from 30 new witnesses.
Source; ORINFOR
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