A former Rwandan minister for women’s empowerment yesterday became the first woman to be found guilty of genocide and incitement to rape by an international tribunal.
Judges at the UN court for Rwanda sentenced Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life in prison for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and rape, and one of her sons to the same term on related charges.
“For these crimes, and considering all relevant circumstances, the chamber sentences you, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, to life imprisonment,” said presiding judge William Hussein Sekule.
Ms Nyiramasuhuko, a mother of four, was found guilty on seven of the 11 genocide charges she faced for atrocities committed in Rwanda’s southern Butare region in 1994.
“Pauline Nyiramasuhuko conspired with other members of the interim government to commit genocide in Butare,” the judge said.
“She ordered rape at the Butare prefecture office. She had superior responsibility on the Interahamwe (militia, which she ordered) to commit the rapes at the Butare prefecture.”
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), formed in late 1994, is trying the masterminds of Rwanda’s genocide in which some 800,000 people, essentially minority Tutsis, were killed over 100 days.
The former minister’s son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who at the time of the genocide led militia groups in Butare, was also sentenced to life for crimes including genocide, extermination and rape as a crime against humanity.
Mr Ntahobali, described by a witness as his mother’s pet, was found guilty both of carrying out rape and of ordering other militiamen to rape.
The judges followed the recommendations of the prosecution made in 2009 in passing the life sentences.
Four co-accused, all former senior officials in the Butare area, were handed terms ranging from 25 years to life.
Former Butare prefect Sylvain Nsabimana was given 25 years and his successor Alphonse Nteziryayo 30 years.
Two former mayors, Joseph Kanyabashi and Elie Ndayambaje, got 35 years and life in prison respectively.
Ms Nyiramasuhuko, who looks younger than her 65 years, was born into a family of subsistence farmers in southern Rwanda. At the age of 40 she enrolled at university, gaining a law degree four years later.
In April 1992 she was appointed minister for family, a position she still held two years later at the time of the genocide.
After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front after the genocide, she fled into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. She was arrested in Kenya in July 1997 and transferred to the ICTR.
The only female detainee at the UN court, Ms Nyiramasuhuko has been appearing before its judges since 2001 in what is the longest-running trial at the ICTR.
The verdict comes 16 years after the first of the co-accused were arrested.