Catholic Priest Convicted of Helping To Kill Parishioners in Rwanda Genocide

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NAIROBI, Kenya — A Catholic priest who stood by while his church was bulldozed with 2,000 people, mostly women and children, inside during Rwanda’s genocide was convicted yesterday and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The United Nations-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Athanase Seromba, 43, guilty of two charges of genocide and extermination and not guilty on two lesser counts. He stood impassively as the verdict and sentence were read out. He had denied all four charges.

The priest is the first of three charged with genocide to be convicted by the court, which sits in the Tanzanian town of Arusha.

Mr. Seromba, a Hutu, was a parish priest at Nyange Church in Kibuye, western Rwanda, when the mass killings started in April 1994.

Some 2,000 Tutsis, many of them regular churchgoers in Mr. Seromba’s congregation, fled to the church seeking refuge as machete-wielding gangs scoured the countryside hacking their victims to death.

According to the prosecution, the priest directed the Hutu militia, which “poured fuel through the roof of the church, while gendarmes and communal police launched grenades and killed the refugees.” He then watched for three hours as the doors were locked, and one after another, the walls were knocked down by the bulldozer until the roof caved in. Survivors who managed to squeeze free were shot dead as they tried to escape.

All that is left of the church are several large mounds of earth covered in flowers and chunks of concrete.

The conviction is likely to refocus attention on the role of the Roman Catholic Church during the genocide, when 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days.

Last month, the tribunal sentenced a Catholic nun to 30 years in prison for helping militias kill hundreds of people hiding in a hospital. Two nuns were convicted in a Belgian court in 2001 for taking part in the genocide.

Mr. Seromba fled to Italy after the genocide ended in July 1994.


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