Rwanda: Ex-women's minister guilty
of genocide, rape
24 Jun 2011
A former Rwandan women's minister has been sentenced to life
in prison for her role in the genocide and the rape of Tutsi women and girls.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 65, is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by an
international court. She was found guilty, along with her son and four other
former officials, after a 10-year trial. Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and
moderate Hutus were killed during the 1994 massacres.
Nyiramasuhuko, who was family affairs and women's
development minister, was accused of ordering and assisting in the massacres in
her home district of Butare in southern Rwanda. "The chamber convicts
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity,
extermination, rape, persecution and violence to life and outrages upon
personal dignity," read the ruling by the trial's three judges. During the genocide she ordered women and
girls to be raped and forced people onto trucks - they were driven away to be
killed. Her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s at the time,
headed a militia that carried out the massacres. He also raped women. Two nuns
were found guilty of participating in the genocide by a court in Belgium.
Rwanda woman jailed in US for lying
about genocide role
16 Jul 2013
A woman who lied about her role in Rwanda's genocide to gain
refugee status in the US has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. Beatrice
Munyenyezi, 43, who has been in the US since 1998, once commanded a roadblock
where victims were picked to be murdered, prosecutors said. An estimated
800,000 people, mostly from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, were killed in
Rwanda in 1994. Witnesses said that she had been a commander of a roadblock in
the southern Rwandan city of Butare, where Tutsis were singled out to be
killed. Her husband, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, and his mother are both serving
life sentences in Rwanda, where they were convicted of genocide charges.
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