Augustin Ngirabatware the former Rwandan minister being the first person convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will transferred to Senegal, where he will serve his sentence, judicial sources confirmed Thursday.
Since 1990, Ngirabatware was the minister of Planning and he kept this position in the interim government formed on April 8, 1994, two days after the assassination of former President Juvenal Habyarimana.
In 2007, the former minister was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and transferred to ICTR headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, a year later. His first trial began in September 2009. Ngirabatware was charged with conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity (including rape).
According to the court presided by Tanzanian judge William Hussein Sekule, the former minister incited, assisted and encouraged militiamen in his native Nyamyumba commune (Northwest) to kill their Tutsi neighbours and rape Tutsi women in April 1994.
The former Rwandan minister was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment. However, on 18 December 2014, the Appeals Chamber acquitted him on the charge of “rape as a crime against humanity” and reduced the sentence to 30 years.
CU/abj/APA