Female Rwanda genocide mastermind jailed for life

"For these crimes, and considering all relevant circumstances, the chamber sentences you Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life imprisonment," said presiding judge William Hussein Sekule.

Nyiramasuhuko, a former minister for women\'s affairs, was found guilty on seven of the 11 genocide charges she faced for atrocities committed in Rwanda\'s southern Butare region in 1994, including conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide and "rape as a crime against humanity."

"Pauline Nyiramasuhuko conspired with other members of the interim government to commit genocide in Butare," the judge said.

"She ordered rape at the Butare prefecture office. She had superior responsibility on the Interahamwe (militia which she ordered) to commit the rapes at the Butare prefecture."

The former minister\'s son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, one of five co-accused, was also sentenced to life for crimes including genocide, extermination and rape as a crime against humanity.

Ntahobali was found guilty both of carrying out rape and of ordering other militiamen to rape.

The other co-accused, all former senior officials in the Butare area, were handed terms ranging from 25 years to life.

Former Butare prefect Sylvain Nsabimana was handed 25 years and his successor Alphonse Nteziryayo 30 years.

Two former mayors, Joseph Kanyabashi and Elie Ndayambaje, got 35 years and life in prison respectively.

Nyiramasuhuko, who looks younger than her 65 years, was born into a modest family in southern Rwanda. At the age of 40 she enrolled at university, gaining a law degree four years later.

In April 1992 she was appointed minister for family, a position she still held two years later at the time of the genocide. After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front she fled into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. She was arrested in Kenya in July 1997 and transferred to the ICTR.

The only female detainee at the UN court, Nyiramasuhuko has been appearing in court since 2001, in what is the longest-running trial at the ICTR.

The verdict comes 16 years after the first of the co-accused were arrested.

The ICTR, formed in late 1994, has been tasked with trying the masterminds of Rwanda\'s genocide in which some 800,000 people, essentially minority Tutsis, were killed in the space of 100 days.

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