Tribunal Convicts 100 in Rwanda Genocide

A tribunal convicted 100 people of rape, torture, murder and crimes against humanity in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, sentencing 11 of them to death and 71 to life imprisonment, J.M. Ntete, prosecutor for Butare province, said Monday.

The crimes were committed during a 100-day slaughter in which more than 800,000 people were killed, most of them members of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority. Moderates from the Hutu majority were also victims.

Those who received the death penalty, including a deputy mayor, were convicted of planning the slaughter.

The mass trial by a three-judge panel, which ended Friday, involved 139 defendants. It was held in a temporary courtroom at the crime site of Mugusa, one of the thousands of settlements that dot Rwanda’s rolling green hills.

Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo said authorities “are grouping all the defendants from a certain place so they can be tried together.”

Eighteen people received prison terms of one year to 25 years, and 39 were acquitted.

Rwanda’s genocide was orchestrated by a government of extremist Hutus who issued orders and distributed hundreds of thousands of machetes to gangs.