ICTR prosecution seeks life sentence for Kanyarukiga

Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), has asked the tribunal to hand a life sentence to Gaspard Kanyarukiga, a former businessman from the former Commune Kivumu in the Western Province. The Genocide suspect is charged with four counts of: Genocide, complicity in Genocide, conspiracy to commit Genocide, and crimes against humanity (extermination). ‘’The most appropriate sentence is imprisonment for the remainder of his life,’’ agencies quote Senior Trial Attorney Holo Makwaia as telling the chamber early this week. At the beginning of his trial late last year, Prosecution also alleged that the accused committed egregious and serious charges which resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, which included women and children at the Nyange church. ‘’The accused directed the driver of the bulldozer on how to destroy the church. He remained there until the church was completely destroyed on April 16, 1994,’’ Makwaia said, emphasizing her request for the maximum penalty against the defendant. ‘’Innocent civilians including children and women were killed brutally and in a barbaric manner in the house of God,’’ charged Makwaia.The same killings at Nyange parish led to the life sentence for the former parish priest of the church, Athanase Seromba. Born in 1945 in Kivumu commune, Kanyarukiga was arrested in South Africa in 2004 and transferred the same year to the UN detention facility in Arusha. Ends

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ICTR prosecution seeks life sentence for Kanyarukiga