Tharcisse Renzaho | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Rwandan |
Occupation(s) | Soldier, Politician |
Criminal status | Incarcerated |
Allegiance | Rwanda |
Conviction(s) |
|
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment (2009) |
Tharcisse Renzaho (born 17 July 1944) is a Rwandan soldier, former politician and war criminal. [1] He is best known for his role in the Rwanda genocide.
Renzaho was born in the Gaseta sector of the Kigarama commune, in the Rwandan prefecture of Kibungo. He was educated as a military engineer in various academies in Germany, France and Belgium. After returning to Rwandan he rose to the rank of colonel in the Rwandan Armed Forces.
In 1990, he entered politics. An ethnic Hutu, he was a part of Juvénal Habyarimana's dominant MRND party. He became governor of the prefecture of Kigali-ville, and president of the Civil Defence Committee for Kigali.
According to the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Renzaho is alleged to have contributed to the genocide in numerous ways between 7 April and July 1994, including exercising his authority to set up roadblocks for the interception and murder of Tutsis, dismissing councillors who objected to the genocide, personally ordering the detainment and murder of Tutsis, equipping genocidaires with Kalashnikov rifles, and ordering the murder of the journalist André Kameya.
Following the collapse of the interim government and the victory of the RPF, Renzaho fled to Zaire.
He was arrested on 26 September 2002 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and was turned over the ICTR on 29 September.
On 14 July 2009 the ICTR sentenced Renzaho to life in prison. On 1 April 2011 the Appeals Chamber confirmed Renzaho's sentence. [2]
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to adjudicate people charged for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals and acquitted 14.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.
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Jean-Paul Akayesu is a former teacher, school inspector, and Republican Democratic Movement (MDR) politician from Rwanda, convicted of genocide for his role in inciting the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
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