Rwanda genocide: Dutch court sentences man to life over massacre

A court in the Netherlands has sentenced a Dutch-Rwandan man to life for his involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The 66-year-old, named only as Eugene N, was accused, among other things, of throwing a hand grenade into a crowd of Tutsis who were seeking shelter in a stadium. He was convicted of war crimes and the crime of genocide, having acted with “genocidal intent”, the judge said.

Rwanda had sought his extradition in 2014 but the authorities in the Netherlands then launched their own investigation into N, who had become a Dutch citizen.

In 100 days in April 1994, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus people were killed by Hutu extremists.

The court in The Hague heard N held an authoritative position in the community at the time of the massacre, overseeing around 1,000 people in Mbazi in southern Rwanda.

“The suspect was a man who was held in high regard and must have been aware of his role and the influence he had as a local administrator,” the court explained, adding that he “committed multiple severe crimes”.

At a football stadium, he instructed Hutus not to let any of the Tutsis escape. Trapped inside, they were pelted with stones, shot at and had hand grenades thrown at them.

Any who had survived, were killed with clubs and machetes, the court said.

Prior to the stadium massacre, N had watched on as people looted houses and set them on fire.

“Only a lifelong prison sentence does justice to the immense suffering that has been inflicted on the victims and the bereaved families,” the court said.

As part of the Dutch investigation opened in 2020, more than 30 witnesses were interviewed. N was subsequently arrested in 2024.

N denied all the charges, the AFP news agency reports, alleging that he was a victim who had lost family in “those horrific events”.

“The case has torn his scars open again. He is a broken man,” his lawyers are quoted as saying by AFP. They had moved to seek acquittals on all accounts. N was acquitted of the incitement to genocide.

His defence team said they will “almost certainly appeal the charges”, according to local news agency ANP.