Two former Rwandan mayors will appeal their conviction and life sentences for taking part in the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide, their lawyers said Thursday.
"We shall appeal this conviction," said Francoise Mathe and Philippe Meilhac, criticising the motives of the Paris court in deciding it.
Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and Tito Barahira, 65, were Wednesday found guilty of "crimes against humanity", "massive and systematic summary executions" and "genocide" in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were hacked to death.
Ngenzi and Barahira denied the charges at an eight-week trial which found that they were "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
Theirs was the stiffest genocide sentence ever handed down by a French court. In 2014, former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa received 25 years in solitary confinement for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Ngenzi and Barahira, as well as Simbikangwa, were arrested in France and judged under universal jurisdiction which permits states to rule on serious crimes regardless of where the wrongdoing was committed or of the accused's nationality or residence.
Mathe criticised the verdict as "imprecise and vague and riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions 22 years on from the killings, a time gap sufficient in his view to mean reasonable doubt exists over the role of the accused.
Unlike the trial of Simbikangwa, an 11-page document setting out the evidence against the former mayors laid down the main elements of the case against them, but lacking details of specific witness testimony in a manner which preferred "quantity to quality" of evidence, the defence lawyers said.
They also argued the case had been conducted "chaotically" and "without a clear and complete vision of the situation", while the accused had been, in their view, "excluded from debates" to the extent that "they were treated as undesirable guests at their own trial."
Meilhac decried what he said were "contradictions in chronology which were fundamental in that, according to declarations by different witnesses, the accused were sometimes in different places at one and these (contradictions) were unable to be examined."
Michel Laval, acting for a number of civil plaintiffs in the case, said he was satisfied with the guilty verdict and could not comment on the length of the sentence handed down as that was in the remit of the court.
By comparison, former army colonel Theoneste Bagosora, considered to have directed the genocide, was handed a life term commuted to 35 years on appeal by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The tribunal handed down sentences ranging from several years to life in jail to other mayors also found culpable of atrocities.
Two former Rwandan mayors will appeal their conviction and life sentences for taking part in the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country’s 1994 genocide, their lawyers said Thursday.
“We shall appeal this conviction,” said Francoise Mathe and Philippe Meilhac, criticising the motives of the Paris court in deciding it.
Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and Tito Barahira, 65, were Wednesday found guilty of “crimes against humanity”, “massive and systematic summary executions” and “genocide” in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were hacked to death.
Ngenzi and Barahira denied the charges at an eight-week trial which found that they were “supervisors” and “executioners” in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
Theirs was the stiffest genocide sentence ever handed down by a French court. In 2014, former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa received 25 years in solitary confinement for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Ngenzi and Barahira, as well as Simbikangwa, were arrested in France and judged under universal jurisdiction which permits states to rule on serious crimes regardless of where the wrongdoing was committed or of the accused’s nationality or residence.
Mathe criticised the verdict as “imprecise and vague and riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions 22 years on from the killings, a time gap sufficient in his view to mean reasonable doubt exists over the role of the accused.
Unlike the trial of Simbikangwa, an 11-page document setting out the evidence against the former mayors laid down the main elements of the case against them, but lacking details of specific witness testimony in a manner which preferred “quantity to quality” of evidence, the defence lawyers said.
They also argued the case had been conducted “chaotically” and “without a clear and complete vision of the situation”, while the accused had been, in their view, “excluded from debates” to the extent that “they were treated as undesirable guests at their own trial.”
Meilhac decried what he said were “contradictions in chronology which were fundamental in that, according to declarations by different witnesses, the accused were sometimes in different places at one and these (contradictions) were unable to be examined.”
Michel Laval, acting for a number of civil plaintiffs in the case, said he was satisfied with the guilty verdict and could not comment on the length of the sentence handed down as that was in the remit of the court.
By comparison, former army colonel Theoneste Bagosora, considered to have directed the genocide, was handed a life term commuted to 35 years on appeal by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The tribunal handed down sentences ranging from several years to life in jail to other mayors also found culpable of atrocities.
