KIGALI  - A former senior member of the Mouvement Républicain National pour le Développement  et  la  Démocratie (MRND), a political party largely responsible for the planning and executing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, died in prison on Monday aged 52.

Georges Rutaganda was sentenced to life imprisonment following his conviction on several counts of Genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania.

A statement released by the ICTR, reads that, "Rutaganda passed away in Benin following sudden complications of a long illness.”

He was serving his sentence in a Benin prison.
During the Genocide, Rutaganda was the vice president of the Interahamwe militia, the spearhead of the Genocide.

He was charged genocide, crimes against humanity and organizing and implementing a mass murder of the Tutsi race.

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