TWO CONVICTED, TWO ACQUITTED, IN 1994 REVENGE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000758

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2018
TAGS: PREL PHUM MOPS RW
SUBJECT: TWO CONVICTED, TWO ACQUITTED, IN 1994 REVENGE
KILLINGS CASE

REF: A. KIGALI 475

B. KIGALI 415

Classified By: CDA Cheryl Sim for Reason 1.4 (b) (d)


1. (U) On October 24, a Rwandan military court sentenced two
army captains to eight years in jail for the murder of 15
Catholic clergy and lay brothers, including several bishops,
in June 1994 near Kabgayi, a Catholic church complex. Two
other officers, a general and major, were acquitted by the
court. These murders occurred at the height of the genocide,
when advancing Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) troops overran
the seat of the rump genocide government in nearby Gitarama,
a government formed by Hutu extremists after the death of
President Habyarimana. Defense counsel presented evidence of
the close involvement of several of the bishops in the
genocide, and of the loss of family members of the four
soldiers who committed the murders. The prosecution argued
that the senior most officers accused in the case should have
known that violence would result; the judge rejected this
contention.


2. (SBU) The two army captains had earlier pled guilty after
extensive investigation to "voluntary murder," a charge which
does not include premeditation; the prosecution had
recommended 15 year sentences. The military prosecutor in
the case told pol/econ chief October 27 that he was satisfied
with the sentence, which was a common one for guilty pleas to
that specific charge. The four soldiers (two now deceased)
who actually committed the murders, after weeks of fighting
their way down to Kabgayi, passing site after site of
horrific massacres, finally lost control of themselves, he
said, when one of them, from the Kabgayi area, realized that
"everyone in his family was dead." He called on the others
to help kill the three bishops and two or three assistants
(whom many at the time considered complicit in the genocide),
and the four soldiers sprang into action. When they burst
into the room where the bishops were held, unable to
distinguish those they sought from those they did not, they
fired indiscriminately, killing 15 persons.


3. (C) The prosecution sought life sentences for the two
senior officers under the "command responsibility" doctrine,
wherein superior officers are presumed to know or have reason
to know of the illegal actions or propensities of soldiers
under their command. In this case, the military judge in
oral comments rejected this line of argument, noting that,
while they was testimony that angry accusations were hurled
at the bishops by surviving Tutsis in the area, there was no
specific evidence that the two senior officers were aware of
these emotional scenes, and so could not have been aware of
the charged atmosphere, or intuited the intentions of their
men. Nevertheless, the military prosecutor stated he thought
the judge had erred in this assessment, and was considering
an appeal, once he receives the judge's written opinion.


4. (C). Comment. This was not an easy case for this or any
other military court to decide. The two senior commanders
presumably were aware of the terrible tensions their men had
been under for months on end, fighting to end the genocide,
and finding their own family members dead along the way. As
noted reftels, there are other similar incidents that
occurred during and after immediately after the 1994 genocide
that have not been addressed by Rwandan military courts
that have not been addressed by Rwandan military courts
(which did prosecute other cases of revenge killings at the
time). The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
pressed the GOR to undertake this particular case for quite
some time. Rwandan military prosecutors are very
closed-mouthed about the prospect for new prosecutions; this
may be the only new case to be brought by the Rwandan
government against its own soldiers for the events of that
time. End comment.


SIM