Rwanda: court sentences genocide Pastor to life imprisonment

A Rwandan court has sentenced a former Pentecostal pastor to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of ordering the massacre of refugees in his church during the 1994 genocide.

According to the indictment, between 100 and 150 Rwandan Tutsis sought refuge in the church Uwinkindi, located Kayanzi, about twenty kilometers from the capital Kigali.

Jean Uwinkindi, 64, was convicted of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”.

Uwinkindi was arrested in Uganda in 2010 and first sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), sitting in Arusha, Tanzania, before being transferred in April 2012 to Rwanda. He pleaded not guilty.

The court finds “Uwinkindi guilty of murder equivalent to genocide, extermination and equivalent to the crime against humanity and should be punished by life imprisonment,” said Judge Timothy Kanyegeri reported the New Times.

In April 1994, 800,000 people mostly among the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus died in the genocide in three months, triggered by Hutu extremists.