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Rwandan Officer Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Genocide


A United Nations war crimes court sentenced a former Rwandan officer to 25 years in prison Thursday for his role in the 1994 genocide.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Tanzania, found Lieutenant Colonel Ephrem Setako guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and other charges.

The court said Setako ordered the killings in 1994 of up to 50 ethnic Tutsis at the Mukamira military camp in the northwestern Ruhengeri region. Setako had been serving as head of the division of legal affairs under the Ministry of Defense.

Setako was arrested in 2004 in the Netherlands and transferred to the U.N. detention facility in Arusha the same year to face charges.

Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The UN tribunal was set up to prosecute those who organized the killings. The court has convicted about 40 people so far, while about 30 suspects are either being tried or awaiting trial.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.

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