Dutch court sentences Rwandan to life for genocide crimes

A Dutch appeal court has extended a 20-year sentence against a Rwandan living in the country to life after finding him guilty of war crimes relating to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis.

AFP/Gianluigi Guercia

Joseph Mpambara had appealed against a 20-year jail term, imposed when he was found guilty of torturing two Tutsi mothers and their four children to death and holding a German-Rwandan couple and their baby against their will for several hours in April 1994.

But the appeal court found him guilty of two crimes for which he had been let off during the previous hearing – an attack on a Protestant church where Tutsis had taken refuge and the kidnapping of three children from the same family.

Judge Raoul Dekkers told him he was guilty of war crimes and upped the sentence to life.