Reuters AlertNet Lite - First person to finish Rwanda genocide sentence dies

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First person to finish Rwanda genocide sentence dies

23 Jan 2007 16:48:46 GMT
Source: Reuters

DAR ES SALAAM, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The first person to be freed after serving prison time for a conviction in the 1994 Rwandan genocide has died, six weeks after his release, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, 83, died on Monday at a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, the base of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which convicted him for aiding and abetting genocide.

An ICTR statement announcing Nkatirumana's death did not give a cause.

The former Seventh Day Adventist Church pastor was sentenced to 10 years in prison for herding large groups of Tutsis into a church and hospital compound in western Rwanda, and then calling Hutu extremists to kill them.

Ntakirutimana was released from the U.N. detention centre in Arusha on Dec. 6, having served 10 years since his capture in Texas in 1996.

The tribunal is responsible for prosecuting leaders involved in the 100 days of bloodletting in which Hutu extremists carried out a planned genocide that killed 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

It has convicted 26 people and acquitted five since its first trial in 1997, and indicted 80 since its establishment in 1994. It has until the end of 2008 to complete its trials -- a deadline it is racing to beat -- and until 2010 to hear appeals.

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Last updated:Tue Jan 23 16:49:55 2007