In 1994, Philippe Hategekimana was judged responsible for the murder of hundreds of ethnic Tutsis and for instigating others to conduct the same atrocities.
On Wednesday, a judge in Paris sentenced 66-year-old former military police officer Philippe Hategekimana to life in prison for his involvement in the 1994 genocide in his home Rwanda.
Since May 10, Hategekimana has been on trial for the murders of hundreds of Tutsis, the mayor of Ntyazo, a nun, and a senior police officer in Nyanza, the capital of the southern provincial region. He was charged with launching an attack on Nyabubare Hill that resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 civilians and 300 Tutsis on Nyamugari Hill.
According to reports, he went to France following the massacre and applied for refugee status before becoming a citizen of France in 2005 under the name Philippe Manier. He fled to Cameroon in 2017 and was apprehended in Yaounde in 2018 and extradited to Paris as a result of a complaint made by one of the plaintiffs.
Hategekimana claimed that he was in Kigali, in command of a colonel’s security, at the time of the massacre on Nyabubare hill during his trial last week, when he denied taking part in the massacre.
“I have endured unfair allegations and lengthy confinement for more than five years. The news source Justice Info cites him as saying, “My family has been decimated, and my life has been ruined.
He was convicted of nearly all of the accusations leveled against him by the court on Wednesday.
He not only committed murders but also incited others to kill their victims, according to the prosecution, who claimed he was instrumental in carrying out the homicides.
He was the fifth person accused of taking part in the genocide that is thought to have killed 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus to be tried in France. Over the course of 100 days, it occurred between April and July of 1994.
Before the year is through, a doctor with Rwandan ancestry who has been residing in France since 1994 will also go on trial.
