A former Rwandan mayor jailed for life for committing genocide during the country's 1994 mass killings had his sentence cut to 45 years by an appeals court today.
In December 2003 a trial court at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, northern Tanzania, found Juvenal Kajelijeli guilty of genocide and incitement to commit genocide.
Juvenal Kajelijeli is watched by a UN security guard in court in Tanzania today
Roland Amoussouga, spokesman at the ICTR, said Kajelijeli, who was arrested in June 1998 and has been in prison for almost seven years, will get credit for time served.
The appeals chamber ruled that because of the serious violations of his fundamental rights during arrest and detention in Benin and at a UN facility, his sentence deserved to be changed into a single 45-year term.
After his arrest, Kajelijeli was held for 306 days in Benin and a UN jail without charge and his initial appearance before a judge was delayed, the ICTR said.
Kajelijeli had initially been sentenced to two concurrent life terms for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity and an additional 15 years for direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
Kajelijeli (52) was mayor of Mukingo, in the northwestern prefecture of Ruhengeri during the 1994 mass killings in which Hutus killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in about 100 days.
The genocide began on April 6th, 1994, after the shooting down of a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana. Prosecutors told his trial that within 12 hours, Kajelijeli had mobilised troops and ordered them to kill Tutsis.
In the days that followed, he distributed arms and supervised roadblocks to make sure the killings were being carried out efficiently, they said.