KIGALI, Rwanda — One of the masterminds of the Rwandan genocide, Thioneste Bagosora, a senior Rwandan military man, died in a prison in Mali on Saturday. He was 80 years old.
An official of the United Nations International Residuary Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague confirmed his death.
Mr Bagosora was convicted He was serving another 35 years in 2008 for genocide and crimes against humanity, which was reduced to life in prison. He was cabinet director of Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense during the 1994 genocide, in which ethnic Hutu extremists killed one million Tutsi and moderate Hutus in just 100 days.
In the three days after 6 April 1994, when the plane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habrimana crashed, Mr. Bagosora met In addition to having a significant influence on political affairs, the Ministry of Defense “assumes the power of the highest authority”.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that during that time it had ordered the killing of some of the country’s top political figures, as well as massacres of civilians in the capital Kigali and in the country’s west.
Those killed included the country’s prime minister, Agathe Uvilingiyimana; Joseph Kavruganda, President of the Constitutional Court; With politicians Frederik Nzmurambaho, Landouald Ndasingwa and Faustín Rukogoza. Under his watch, military officers and militiamen also executed civilians in religious centers and schools.
Mr Bagosora was also initially found guilty of killing 10 Belgian peacekeepers, which led to the withdrawal of UN forces. The peacekeepers were arrested in the prime minister’s office on the morning of 7 April and taken to Camp Kigali where they were shot, beaten to death or killed with axes.
Even though Mr Bagosora’s defense team said the attack was the result of a “rebellion”, the tribunal found him responsible for their deaths. Mr Bagosora, the judges said, “had knowledge of the threat posed against him in the form of an attack,” adding, “he had the authority and means to prevent it, but failed to do so.”
Mr Bagosora was sentenced to life imprisonment. But in 2011 the sentence was reduced to 35 years after several convictions – including the killing of some Belgian peacekeepers and civilians in several places – reversed on appeal.
Thioneste Bagosora was born on 16 August 1941 in the city of Gisia, now part of the Western Province of Rwanda. He was married and the father of eight children, one of whom died in a car accident. According to the documents of the Tribunal.
In the decades before the genocide, he received training at home and across Europe and rose through the ranks of the Rwandan army. He graduated as a second lieutenant from the Col d’officiers de Kigali in 1964, trained in Belgium and graduated with accolades from L’Institut des Hautes Tudes de Défense Nationale in France in 1982.
In October 1989, he became a full colonel until his retirement in September 1993. But the Minister of Defence, Augustin Bizimana, recalled him to active duty in May 1994, even though he continued to serve as Cabinet Director for the Ministry of Defence.
After the massacre, Mr Bagosora first fled to Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – and then left for Cameroon, where he was arrested in 1996 and transferred to the tribunal’s headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. Earlier this year, his request for an early release was denied.
marlice simmons Contributed reporting.