Genocide minister gets life term

Memories of the genocide remain fresh

A former Rwandan education minister has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide.

Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda was also found guilty of crimes against humanity by the international court set up after the 1994 genocide.

He was accused of personally leading militias to slaughter ethnic Tutsis sheltering in a church and a school.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in just 100 days, many hacked to death with machetes.

A BBC reporter in Arusha, where the court is based, said Kamuhanda, 51, showed no reaction when the sentenced was read out but his lawyer said he would appeal against the sentence.

He was minister of higher education, scientific research and culture during the genocide and becomes the fifth person convicted of genocide in two months by the Arusha tribunal.

This follows just 12 convictions in the previous eight years, which had led to accusations of inefficiency.

Last year, Hassan Jallow from The Gambia was named chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, replacing Carla Del Ponte.