Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: a Belgian-Rwandan convicted

A 65-year-old Belgian-Rwandan man was sentenced on June 10, 2024 by the Brussels Assize Court to 25 years of criminal imprisonment for his participation in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

Emmanuel Nkunduwimye, known as “Bomboko”, has been tried in Belgium since the beginning of April by the Brussels Assize Court. On June 10, 2024, he was sentenced to 25 years of criminal imprisonment for his participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

This Belgian-Rwandan, now aged 65, was found guilty of genocide, war crimes, murder and rape. In April 1994, he was close to several militia leaders, notably Robert Kajuga and Georges Rutaganda, respectively president and second vice-president of the Interahamwe, the Hutu militias involved in the genocide.

Indeed, Rutaganda was sentenced to life in prison in 1999 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The Assize Court jury wrote that Nkunduwimye had helped these militiamen ” informed “. The latter committed massacres of Tutsis in Kigali, particularly in a complex of buildings housing the garage operated by Bomboko, owned by Georges Rutaganda's father. “He could not ignore the abuses committed in these places”according to the sentencing judgment cited by the Belga agency.

Additionally, Bomboko was found guilty of personally killing three people and assisting or ordering the execution of other victims. He was also convicted of raping a Tutsi woman, who testified during the trial and positively identified him.

Despite his protests of innocence during the two-month hearing, this sixty-year-old, arrested in 2011 in Belgium, was heavily sentenced. He now has two weeks to possibly appeal to the Court of Cassation.