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Rwanda genocide survivors condemn early release of convicts

Xinhua, December 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Rwanda's genocide survivors' associations Ibuka on Monday condemned the early release of two convicted masterminds of the 1994 genocide, which killed close to 1 million Rwandans.

Ibuka decried the early release of Ferdinand Nahimana and Emmanuel Rukundo, as announced by the President of UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Judge Theodor Meron.

Both convicts are jailed in Mali. Nahimana, described as a genocide ideologue, is serving 30 years, while Rukundo, a former Catholic priest, is serving a 23-year jail term.

Judge Meron, in a September decision published on the MICT website, said although Nahimana crimes were grave, "the fact that he already completed two-thirds of his sentence as of March 27, 2016, and having demonstrated some signs of rehabilitation weigh in favor of his early release."

The same would apply to Rukundo, a former military chaplain, according to MICT.

In a statement Monday, Ibuka President Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu said their release shows "how callous and unfair the ICTR has been to survivors of the genocide."

"Survivors had high hopes of this court, many cooperated with it, but we have not yet received the justice expected. Judges who release people like Nahimana and Rukundo, knowing very well what they did, are doing so deliberately and with suspicious motives that have nothing to do with justice," it said.

So far, ten genocide perpetrators convicted by the ICTR have been granted early release by Judge Meron.

Ferdinand Nahimana is a former history professor and co-founder of RTLM, an extremist radio station that spread hate speech and called for the killing of the Tutsi people before and during the genocide.

First arrested in 1996, Nahimana was found guilty in December 2003, of multiple genocide crimes.

Emmanuel Rukundo, a former military chaplain, was arrested in 2001, before he was convicted of genocide, extermination and murder in February 2009.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame last Friday also criticized the early release, describing the act as dubious. Enditem