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Verdict expected in the Paris trial of a former Rwandan doctor accused of genocide
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Verdict expected in the Paris trial of a former Rwandan doctor accused of genocide

PARIS — A Paris court is expected to announce its verdict on Wednesday in the trial of a former Rwandan doctor accused of playing a role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The prosecuting attorneys general asked for 30 years in prison for Eugène Rwamucyo, a 65-year-old former doctor, on charges of genocide, complicity, crimes against humanity and conspiracy to prepare those crimes. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Three decades after the genocide, several witnesses traveled to Paris for the four-week trial and gave graphic descriptions of the killings in the Butare region, where Rwamucyo was at the time.

This is the seventh trial related to the April 1994 genocide to reach the Paris court in the past decade. The massacres saw the killing by gangs of Hutu extremists, backed by the army and police, of more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Rwandan minority Hutu who tried to protect them.

Angélique Uwamahoro, who was 13 at the time, said she came to court to “seek justice for my people, who died for what they were.”

She said she saw Rwamucyo, who was her mother’s doctor, at the scene of a massacre in a monastery where she and her family had taken refuge. Among the dead are several of her family members.

After he managed to escape, Uwamahoro said he saw Rwamucyo again at a road block in Butare town and heard him encouraging militiamen to kill Tutsis. “He wanted to incite them to kill us so we wouldn’t get out alive,” she said.

Alain Gauthier, founder of the Collective of Civil Parties for...

Alain Gauthier, founder of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, arrives at a criminal court in Paris, which is set to deliver its verdict in the trial of Eugène Rwamucyo, a former doctor accused of genocide, complicity, crimes against humanity and conspiracy to prepare those crimes for that they played a role in the 1994 genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu minorities who tried to protect them, Wednesday, October 30, 2024, in Paris. Credit: AP/Louise Delmotte

Other witnesses described mass graves and people burying bodies, including groups of prisoners who were asked to do the job. Some said the wounded were buried alive.

The defendant, Rwamucyo, is accused of spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and overseeing operations to bury victims in mass graves, the prosecution said.

The former doctor said his role in the mass burials was motivated only by “hygienic” considerations and denied that survivors were buried alive.

Rwamucyo was arrested in a suburb north of Paris in 2010. At the time he was working as a doctor in a hospital in northern France.

Family photos of some of those who died hang in...

Family photos of some of those who died hang in a display at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali, Rwanda, April 5, 2014. Credit: AP/Ben Curtis

French police arrested him while attending the funeral of Jean Bosco Baravagwiza, considered one of the masterminds of the genocide. Baravagwiza was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2003.

Last December, another doctor, Sosthene Munyemana, was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and aiding and abetting genocide and sentenced to 24 years in prison. He appealed.