Legal News

Priest Gets Life Sentence for Role in Rwandan Genocide

By Dan Slater

On a long flight, a few years back, we became completely engrossed in Philip Gourevitch’s book about the Rwandan genocide, “We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.” Not only did we think the book was a masterpiece of reporting, but we’d also been largely ignorant of the events surrounding the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the spring of 1994.

Yesterday, a United Nations war crimes court upheld the war crimes and genocide conviction of Reverend Athanase Seromba (pictured), and increased his sentence to life in prison. Here’s the report from Agence France-Press, and here’s a 2002 NYT story that provides background on the trial.

The tale of Seromba’s role in the slaughter of 1,500 of his own parishioners who’d taken shelter in his church is one of the most haunting in Gourevitch’s book. According to reports, rather than seeking to protect his flock, Father Seromba, an ethnic Hutu, had the church leveled by bulldozers and ordered gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the carnage. There were no survivors.

“Seromba knew that approximately 1,500 refugees were in the church,” Judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen said yesterday, handing down his ruling on the appeal. “He committed genocide as well as extermination as a crime against humanity by virtue of his role in the destruction of the church. The acts of Seromba are sufficient to constitute direct participation in the crimes.”

Seromba was the first Catholic priest to face genocide charges before the tribunal, although several other clergy members have been tried by the tribunal and foreign courts in connection with the genocide.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).