jMali
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 9, 2010
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"I was wrongly convicted. I was not accorded a fair trial by Gacaca Courts but what could I do?" Nkurikiyinka confided.
An example is former Catholic priest Benoit Sebyatsi, 68, who is 17 years into a 30-year prison sentence. The bespectacled man, who worked with the social security fund during the genocide, says he was wrongly convicted because he had no power to influence or stop the killings.
"I was a non-entity. Most of the killings I was accused of were not carried out by me directly but by the military in my presence. Who was I to stop them?" posed Sebyatsi, who at the time had been defrocked.
Sebyatsi, who was accused of abandoning the Tutsi mother of his child to the killers, says he had no powers to halt the marauding militias. The unrepentant elderly man, despite being considered among the reformed prisoners, maintains his innocence.
In a bout of anger, he instead claims that one of his sons, who led to his defrocking, was killed by one of the fighting sides but not the government. He says a stray mortar from a Katyusha fell near where the young boy was and killed him instantly.
Asked if he is accusing the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) of killing his son, he responded with laughter: "Who was using Katyushas at the time? Was it the government?"
Thierry Gasamagera, 60, considered among the good inmates and is halfway through a 30-year sentence, also maintains his innocence, stating that his only crime was being a local leader in a city suburb at the time.
"The only thing I did was to distribute guns on the orders of high-ranking government officials. I don't deny distributing the guns but it was a directive which, if I had not carried it out, would put me and my family in trouble."
Source: The East African.
An example is former Catholic priest Benoit Sebyatsi, 68, who is 17 years into a 30-year prison sentence. The bespectacled man, who worked with the social security fund during the genocide, says he was wrongly convicted because he had no power to influence or stop the killings.
"I was a non-entity. Most of the killings I was accused of were not carried out by me directly but by the military in my presence. Who was I to stop them?" posed Sebyatsi, who at the time had been defrocked.
Sebyatsi, who was accused of abandoning the Tutsi mother of his child to the killers, says he had no powers to halt the marauding militias. The unrepentant elderly man, despite being considered among the reformed prisoners, maintains his innocence.
In a bout of anger, he instead claims that one of his sons, who led to his defrocking, was killed by one of the fighting sides but not the government. He says a stray mortar from a Katyusha fell near where the young boy was and killed him instantly.
Asked if he is accusing the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) of killing his son, he responded with laughter: "Who was using Katyushas at the time? Was it the government?"
Thierry Gasamagera, 60, considered among the good inmates and is halfway through a 30-year sentence, also maintains his innocence, stating that his only crime was being a local leader in a city suburb at the time.
"The only thing I did was to distribute guns on the orders of high-ranking government officials. I don't deny distributing the guns but it was a directive which, if I had not carried it out, would put me and my family in trouble."
Source: The East African.
