Former senior Rwandan executive jailed for 8 years

ARUSHA, Tanzania — A United Nations war crimes tribunal sentenced on Thursday a former chief of Rwanda's tea processing and marketing agency to eight years in prison for his role in the country's 1994 genocide.

Michael Bagaragaza, 64, had pleaded guilty to "complicity to commit genocide" in September. He was a member of the party that was in power during the 100-day slaughter of members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and political moderates from the Hutu majority.

Judge Vagn Joensen said a three-judge panel of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ruled that Bagaragaza would get credit for the four years he spent in detention since his arrest in August 2005 and so will only serve for four years.

Delivering his 20-minute judgment before a packed gallery, Joensen said the judges took into account Bagaragaza's guilty plea, claims of remorse and his voluntary surrender when deciding the sentence.

Bagaragaza, a father of eight children, had also agreed to assist the tribunal in the future.

"Bagaragaza has thereby to a remarkable degree contributed to the process of truth-finding with respect to the Rwandan tragedy and to national reconciliation," the judges said.

"It is likely that when agreeing to provide assistance to the genocidaires, he was motivated by concern for the safety of his family and himself," Joensen said.

Bagaragaza's lawyer, Gerardus Knoops, said the sentence was "fair."

Bagaragaza had admitted that in April 1994 he used the tea factory of Rubaya, Gisenyi Prefecture in northern Rwanda to stock arms and ammunition which were used by the extremist Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe. He also confessed to giving them money, beer and vehicles belonging to the factory.

"I beg for forgiveness for the evil I have committed," said Bagaragaza, a close friend of the late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

According to U.N. estimates, at least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the slaughter, which began immediately after Habyarimana was killed in April 1994.

Habyarimana's plane was brought down by unknown assailants as it was approaching the capital, Kigali. Also killed in the same plane was Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira. Both were returning from a regional peace meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The tribunal has convicted 39 people and acquitted six. Trials are under way for eleven others, and two are waiting for their trials to start. Eleven most-wanted fugitives are still on the run.

___

Nov 05, 2009 - 11:52 a.m. EDT

Copyright 2009, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.