The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda yesterday cut the sentence of Jean Baptiste Gatete, popularly known as the Butcher of Murambi, to 40 years. Gatete had been sentenced to life.Gatete, a former director in the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs, is notorious in the former Murambi Commune, now in Eastern Province, where he had served as Bourgmestre (Mayor) many years prior to the Genocide.“The Appeals Chamber sets aside the sentence of life imprisonment imposed on Jean-Baptiste Gatete and imposes a sentence of 40 years of imprisonment, subject to credit being given under Rules for the period he has already spent in detention since his arrest on September 11, 2002,” presiding Judge Liu Daqun said.But the ICTR upheld the decision that he was guilty of ordering and encouraging the massacres of Tutsis in three areas of Byumba and Kibungo prefectures in April 1994.A statement from the ICTR said: “The Appeals Chamber reduced Gatete’s sentence to 40 years of imprisonment as a remedy for the violation of his right to be tried without undue delay”. An agronomist by training, Gatete, 59, was arrested on September 11, 2002 in Congo-Brazzaville, but his trial started on October 20, 2009.On April 7, 1994, there were Tutsi massacres in Rwankuba sector, while other killings occurred on April 11, 1994 at Kiziguro parish, in Murambi Commune. On April 12, 1994, Tutsis were killed at Mukarange parish, in Kayonza Commune, in Kibungo prefecture. For these crimes, Gatete was convicted of genocide and crime against humanity.Although he was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide in relation to the events, the lower court dismissed the count because it was based on the same facts with that of genocide. The prosecution was aggrieved by such findings and lodged an appeal, claiming that the Trial Chamber had committed an error.
