Dutch court sentences Hutu to life

RNW, 7 July 2011, by RNW Africa Desk

(Photo: RNW)

The Appeal Court in The Hague on Thursday sentenced Joseph Mpambara to life imprisonment for war crimes committed during the genocide in Rwanda.

"You were at the forefront during the attack on the Seventh Day Adventist Complex. You and others shot these people, and attacked them with machetes, clubs and other weapons. Many hundreds of victims were massacred and wounded. "

Presiding judge Raoul Dekkers told Mpambara that he had acted in a genocidal manner. Tutsi civilians were attacked in Muganero, in western Rwanda. The only possible punishment is life, the judge and his two colleagues decided.

The 43-year-old Rwandan was also convicted of an attack on an ambulance containing fleeing Tutsis. Two women and two children were so violently beaten with sticks and machetes that they later died. He was also found guilty of threatenimg of a German doctor and his Tutsi wife.

The court, however, found him not guilty of two counts of rape.

Appeal

In March 2009 Mpambara was sentenced by a court in The Hague to 20 years in jail for torturing the people in the ambulance, the German doctor, his wife and their newborn baby. At that time he was acquitted of the massacre at the church and of war crimes. The judges at the lower court found two years ago that Mpambara's actions were not linked to attacks by the army or rebels in 1994.

The appeal court ruled differently on Thursday. The background of the genocide and civil war (1990-1994) was everywhere, the court ruled. Mpambara's crimes were an inextricable part of that.

Not guilty plea

Mpambara pleaded not guilty. He claimed that in 1994 he didn't even know that about the killings in his village, Mugonero. The judges told him that he must have known something: in his immediate surroundings about 60,000 people were killed. His brother, Obed Rizundana, visited Joseph during the genocide. He is now serving a prison sentence of 25 years in Mali. He was convicted in 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

"You were the only one in Rwanda who didn't know that a genocide had taken place," Judge Dekkers told Mpambara. "The court finds your story totally unbelievable." Mpambara looked ahead stoically, his hand under his chin.

Victims

Blood was spilled in the thousand hills of Rwanda. On 27 April 1994 Jacqueline decided to flee with her son Friedrich and her friend Wolfgang Blam. They left the hospital by car, but were stopped by a Hutu militia in Mugonero.

To the anger of the Interahamwe [a Hutu paramilitary organisation] Jacqueline had destroyed her ID card that said "Tutsi". In 1994 that meant a death sentence. The men decided to refer the situation to Joseph, the son of a wealthy shopkeeper in Mugonero, and drove to his shop. On the way, militias - armed with machetes and clubs - called the Tutsi "cockroaches" and said that all "must die."

Joseph pointed out a problem. Wolfgang Blam was a German doctor, and the shopkeeper said that if he died, there would be difficulties with Germany. Joseph decided that Jacqueline should not continue her journey. She was insulted, humiliated, and it was discussed how she would be killed. Her two month old son also had to die because his mother was a Tutsi.

After intervention by the mayor, the couple were allowed to leave. They are still traumatized. Dr Blam and his wife were both awarded compensation of 680.67 euros by the Dutch courts. In April she spoke before the court.

Adrien Harorimana also travelled to The Hague. He had witnesses his niece Consolata being raped and murdered in front of Joseph. "I've heard that in the Netherlands one witness is not enough," he told the judges in April.

"It is regrettable that I'm the only one who saw it, and that makes me sad." He asked the judges "to find someone who can confirm his story." The prosecution didn't, however, and the the judges failed to receive sufficient corroborating evidence, so Mpambara was declared not guilty of rape.

Criminal proceedings

After wandering around, Mpambara arrived at Schiphol in 1998. He had a false passport and told the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) that he had fled Rwanda for fear of reprisals from Tutsi rebels. Moreover, he feared persecution because he had defended his brother at the Rwanda Tribunal.

Mpambara didn't get asylum - quite the reverse. In 2006, he was arrested in Amsterdam.

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