The former mayor of a Rwandan town pleaded guilty on Wednesday to aiding and abetting the country’s 1994 genocide as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors at a United Nations-backed tribunal, the court said.
Under the deal approved by the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Paul Bisengimana, who was mayor of Gikoro commune in central Kigali Rural province in 1994, admitted to failing to act to stop mass slaughters, it said.
The 57-year-old pleaded guilty to charges of having ”aided and abetted in the commission of the crimes of murder and extermination” but not guilty to genocide, complicity in genocide and rape as a crime against humanity, it said.
As part of the plea agreement, the last three charges, the most serious he faced, were dropped, the ICTR said in a statement.
”The trial chamber granted the prosecutor’s request to withdraw the remaining three counts and dismissed the said counts in conformity with the plea agreement,” it said.
Bisengimana was accused of organising, planning and participating in the killing of thousands of Tutsis who had sought refuge at a church in his commune during the 100-day April-to-July killing spree in which about 800 000 thousand people, mainly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.
He was ordered to be held in protective custody pending an as-yet unscheduled sentencing hearing, the statement said.
The independent Hirondelle News Agency covering ICTR proceedings said Bisengimana could face between 12 and 14 years in prison after the court accepted his guilty plea on the lesser charge.
Set up in late 1994 to prosecute those responsible for the genocide, the ICTR had until Wednesday tried 25 people for their alleged role in the slaughter and has convicted 22 suspects and acquitted three. – Sapa-AFP