Tempus 2008 v 12

Tidskriften

 War Crimes Court Upholds Ruling on Rwandan

A United Nations war crimes court on Wednesday upheld the war crimes and genocide conviction of a Roman Catholic priest and increased his sentence to life in prison for his part in the killings of 800,000 fellow Rwandans.

In April 1994, when pro-government Hutu militiamen were rounding up ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu for slaughter across Rwanda, 1,500 parishioners of the priest, the Rev. Athanase Seromba, took shelter in his church in the town of Nyange.

Rather than seeking to protect his flock, Father Seromba, an ethnic Hutu, had the church leveled by bulldozers and ordered gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the carnage, according to testimony introduced in court. There were no survivors.

“Seromba knew that approximately 1,500 refugees were in the church,” Judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen said, handing down his ruling on the appeal.

“He committed genocide as well as extermination as a crime against humanity by virtue of his role in the destruction of the church. The acts of Seromba are sufficient to constitute direct participation in the crimes.”

Father Seromba was the first priest charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court for Rwanda, which was set up to prosecute the planners of the 1994 massacre. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Both the prosecution and the defense appealed; prosecutors claimed the sentence was too light, while Father Seromba continued to proclaim his innocence.

On Wednesday, the court found in favor of the prosecution, rejecting the defendant’s appeal and increasing his sentence.

In the aftermath of the genocide, Father Seromba sought refuge in other parts of Africa before going to Italy, where the Roman Catholic Church allowed him to continue working.

Italy refused to execute the tribunal’s arrest warrant, but in 2002 the priest turned himself in.

Father Seromba was the first Catholic priest to face genocide charges before the tribunal, although several other clergy members have been tried by the tribunal and foreign courts in connection with the genocide.