June 17, 2004
Judges at the UN International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) sentenced a former mayor to 30 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, an official told IRIN.
ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga said Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, a former mayor of Rusumo in the southeastern province of Kibungo, was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, committed during the April-June 1994 genocide. The UN court indicted Gacumbitsi on 20 June 2001, on charges of genocide, involvement in genocide, extermination, murder and rape during the genocide that claimed 937,000 lives, according to a census carried out by the Rwandan government.
According to the ICTR, Gacumbitsi was born in 1947 in the commune of Rusumo in Kibungo Province. He became mayor in 1983. He was arrested on 20 June 2001 in the Mukugwa refugee camp in Kigoma, western Tanzania. He made an initial appearance before the ICTR on 26 June 2001 and pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He faced five counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder and rape.
According to the prosecution, Gacumbitsi participated in organising and executing massacres in Rusumo, targeting military and civilian members of the Tutsi population during the genocide. The trial opened on 28 July 2003 before Trial Chamber III of the ICTR, comprising Judges Andresia Vaz of Senegal (presiding), Jai Ram Reddy of Fiji Islands and Sergei Egorov of Russia.
The UN Security Council established the ICTR in 1995 to bring to trial those responsible for the genocide. Since its inception, the UN court has completed trials for 23 people. Currently, 34 suspects await trial while 10 others the tribunal has indicted are still at large.
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