Rwandan ex-prime minister sentenced to life in prison

THE HAGUE, OCT 19: Jean Kambanda, who as Prime Minister oversaw the 1994 bloodshed in Rwanda, today lost an appeal against his sentence to life imprisonment for genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal.

Kambanda, who headed Rwanda’s interim government during the bloodbath that claimed up to 800,000 lives in the tiny central African country in April 1994, is the first head of government to be sentenced for the crime of genocide.

Today’s ruling by the tribunal’s appeal court confirmed a sentence handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in September 1998.