{"id":7458,"date":"2014-02-18T10:36:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T15:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=7458"},"modified":"2014-02-18T10:36:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T15:36:40","slug":"rwandan-genocide-suspect-sentenced-to-14-years-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/7458","title":{"rendered":"Rwandan Genocide Suspect Sentenced to 14 Years in Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An ex-mayor of Muvumba province, north-eastern Rwanda, has been sentenced to 14 years in jail by a court in Germany, after he was found guilty of complicity in the 1994 genocide which left almost one million people dead.<\/p>\n

The trial of the 56 years old Onesphore Rwabukombe, who reportedly moved to Germany in 2002, began three years ago and has reportedly involved close to 100 witnesses.<\/p>\n

The accused was charged with ordering and coordinating the massacre of over one thousand Tutsi civilians who had sought refuge in a church in his province.<\/p>\n

Although the prosecution allegedly sought a life sentence for Rwabukombe, the Frankfurt court ruled to have him serve 14 years in jail.<\/p>\n

This is the first case heard by a German court relating to the 1994 genocide.<\/p>\n

Pundits have criticized the decision to hear the trial in Germany, noting that foreign courts are not usually equipped to handle the complexities of genocide cases.<\/p>\n

Several suspects implicated in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus have been tried and sentenced in Rwanda, Tanzania and several other countries around the world.<\/p>\n

In February, a French court opened the trial of a suspect of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Pascal Simbikangwa. This trial is seen as a major step towards bringing evasive perpetrators of the 1994 genocide to justice – many of whom are reportedly on exile in the Democratic Republic of Congo and France.<\/p>\n

[Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst\/DPA\/AFP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ex-mayor of Muvumba province, north-eastern Rwanda, has been sentenced to 14 years in jail by a court in Germany, after he was found guilty of complicity in the 1994 genocide which left almost one million people dead. The trial…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[1525,1526,4973],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7458"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}