A Belgian court sentenced a Rwandan to 25 years in prison for genocide. 71-year-old Fabien Neretsé was found guilty on Thursday of being responsible for genocide and several war crimes in the East African country. That was decided by the jury in Brussels. The prosecutor had asked for 30 years in prison.
When considering the sentence, the court considered the age of the former government official as a mitigating circumstance, as judge Sophie Leclercq said. In the trial, the accused showed "no pity" for the massacres committed in 1994 on the Tutsi minority in Rwanda.
Neretsé is the first person to be convicted of genocide in Belgium. The Belgian judiciary has had unlimited jurisdiction in cases of genocide since an amendment in 1993.
Neretsé was arrested in France in 2011. The murder, for which he is held responsible, is said to have occurred in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and in the administrative districts of Gitarama and Ruhengeri. In the months of April to July 1994, at least 800,000 people were killed in the genocide in Rwanda, according to the UN.
