(3 Jan 1997) Natural Sound
Two Rwandans convicted in the genocide of at least 500-thousand mostly minority Tutsis during 90 days of state-sponsored genocide in 1994 have been sentenced to death.
Deo Bizimana, a former hospital aide, and Egide Gatanaza, a former local official, were convicted Friday on 11 charges, including organising massacres and raping and pillaging their Tutsi neighbours.
Both had pleaded innocent.
The trial in Kibungo, 95 kms (60 miles) southeast of the capital, Kigali, opened last Friday when seven witnesses - Tutsi survivors of the 1994 genocide - made brief statements to the three-judge panel.
A week later, former hospital aide Deo Bizimana, seen here in court, and former local official Egide Gatanaza, have been convicted of the genocide of at least 500-thousand mostly minority Tutsis and sentenced to death.
They have 15 days to appeal the death sentences, the court in the southeastern town of Kibungo ruled.
Neither man is said to have shown any emotion as the verdict was read out.
The courtroom, as a week ago, was nearly full with 250 silent onlookers.
Bizimana and Gatanaza were the first to be tried among 1,946 Rwandans accused of planning the genocide of minority Tutsis in mid-1994.
More than 85-thousand other detainees are crammed into Rwandan prisons awaiting trial for lesser genocide-related crimes.
Rwandan officials have said that once the organisers of the genocide are convicted and executed, it will be easier to show leniency for those who followed their orders.
Such leniency will help promote reconciliation, they say.
The majority of the killings were committed by peasants.
The Rwandan trials have begun before those promised by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which operates under a U-N mandate to prosecute those responsible for organising the genocide.
The tribunal, based in the northern Tanzania town of Arusha, has indicted 21 people, but only seven are in custody and the court has been slow in prosecuting them.
The first trial, of Jean-Paul Akayesu, is scheduled to begin on January 9th.
The U-N court cannot impose the death penalty.
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