Life sentence for Rwanda ex-women’s minister

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko has been sentenced to life in prison for genocide and encouraging the rape of Tutsi women. The judgement signalled the end of a ten-year trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The 65-year-old is the first woman convicted by the UN-backed court.

She was found guilty of seven of the 11 charges which she faced and denied all of them. Her son was also found guilty of atrocities committed in Rwanda.

The country was torn apart in 1994 during the massacre. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the genocide in the space of 100 days.

After the killings Nyiramasuhuko fled to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) before being arrested in Kenya in 1997.

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