The six-week trial at the Paris Assize Court began nearly three decades after a complaint against Munyemana was made in Bordeaux in 1995.
Dr. Munyemana, a former medical doctor at the University Hospital in Butare (CHUB) in southern Rwanda also known as the “Butcher of Tumba” was accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and complicity in such crimes.
At the time, Munyemana was a 38-year-old gynaecologist in Tumba in the southern university district of Butare, the French prosecutor said he supervised the genocide and participated in a local committee and meetings that organised the rounding up of Tutsi civilians.
He was also accused of co-signing in April 1994 “a motion of support” for the interim government that supervised the genocide, according to the prosecution.
Reading the verdict, the judge said Munyemana was part of a group that “prepared, organised and steered the genocide of the Tutsis … on a daily basis”.
Reacting to the French’s court decision, the Executive Secretary of “Ibuka”, Naphtal Ahishakiye, welcomed the judgment.
“We are welcoming the court’s decision because genocide survivors were impatiently waiting for this trial,” Ahishakiye said.
The defendant has repeatedly denied the accusations against him, claiming to have been a moderate Hutu who tried to “save” Tutsis by offering them “refuge” in one of the local government offices.
Munyemana acknowledged participating in local night patrols which were organised to track Tutsi people, but he said he did it to protect the local population. However, most of the witnesses saw him at checkpoints set up across the town where he supervised operations.
In one of the many testimonies before the Cour d’assises de Paris, a survivor of the 1994 genocide recounted the brutal nightmare she endured under the orders of Dr. Sostherne Munyemana.
The witness further revealed that Munyemana, in collaboration with other sector leaders, initiated roadblocks where numerous Tutsi were targeted and killed. She alleged that Munyemana maintained a list of people to be killed.
The killings did not stop at physical violence. The witness claimed that Tutsi women were injected with syringes containing deadly substances in their private parts.
These needles, provided by Munyemana, were allegedly filled with medicines aimed at causing rapid death. The witness spoke of the unimaginable moment she witnessed, such as removing syringes from her mother-in-law’s body.
CU/as/APA