This Week in Who's-Going-to-Jail
Published July 16, 2009 @ 03:18PM PT
Mr. Tharcisse Renzaho, former governor of Kigali and army colonel, is the lucky winner of life imprisonment, courtesy of a guilty verdict from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. From Lisa Gambone at War Crimes:
"Renzaho was found guilty based on his support of the killing of civilians at roadblocks, the distribution of weapons, and his involvement in the murder of more than 100 Tutsis at the Sainte Famille Church, where refugees' names were read from a list and the victim's subsequently shot in the church's garden. He was also found criminally liable for rapes that occurred as a result of his remarks encouraging sexual violence against Tutsi women."
Bec Hamilton writes with skepticism on the evidence presented against former Rwandan parliamentarian Béatrice Nirere, as she (ultimately unsuccessfully) attempted to appeal her life sentence through Rwanda's gacaca justice system.
Meanwhile, half a world away, the Swedish government suspended the extradition of a Rwandan genocide suspect, following a request made by the European Court of Human Rights, likely on account of concerns over judicial independence in Rwanda.
Still in the dock...
In Germany, John Demjanjuk was officially charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder for his role as a Nazi death camp guard during the Holocaust. Demjanjuk was deported from the US in May.
In Cambodia, a former Khmer Rouge interrogator was notably lacking in remorse during his appearance as a prosecution witness in the trial of Duch, the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison.
Last week, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia rejected a claim by Radovan Karadzic that he his immune from war crimes prosecutions on account of supposed-assurances of amnesty from US envoy Richard Holbrooke. Karadzic faces 11 charges, including genocide, for allegedly organizing massacres of Bosnian civilians in the mid-1990s.
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Michelle became involved in the anti-genocide cause at a young age, and has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns, ever since.
