Court convicts priest for ordering deaths of Rwandans during genocide

Published: 2006-12-14

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNS) -- A United Nations war crimes court sentenced a priest to 15 years in prison for ordering militias to set fire to his church and bulldoze it, killing the 2,000 Tutsis who had sought safety inside during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, found Father Athanase Seromba guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity Dec. 13. Father Seromba ordered the church destroyed after Tutsis seeking refuge in his church in Nyange Parish in Kibuye, in western Rwanda, repelled an assault by gendarmes and the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia that carried out many of the killings during the genocide. Father Seromba showed the structural weak points in the church to the bulldozer driver, said a statement released by the tribunal.

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