A Brussels court on Tuesday found two Rwandan businessmen guilty of war crimes and murder linked to the 1994 genocide in their country.
After 10 hours of deliberations, the jury found Etienne Nzabonimana, 54 guilty of 56 out of 57 charges against him. His half-brother Samuel Ndashyikirwa, 43, was found guilty of 23 out of 24 of the charges he faced, the Belga news agency reported.
The charges included war crimes and murders committed in the Kibungo region of southeast Rwanda where 50,000 people were massacred in April 1994.
Witnesses say that the two Hutu businessmen "supervised" several attacks, including one on a market, and others against churches. Several hundred people were killed in the massacres, which were carried out using machetes, grenades and rifles.
The accused, arrested in Belgium in 2002, denied any role in the genocide.
Nzabonimana claimed that he never left his house during the Kibungo massacre. In his last words to the court he said that he had "no, no, no role in this tragedy."
Ndashyikirwa, while denying culpability, did express regret over his inability to save friends and neighbors from the massacre.
Prosecutor Alain Winants challenged their denials in court, stating that the two men had helped the Hutu Interhamwe militia during the massacres, including by handing out weapons and beer to them and lending them vehicles to travel in the southeast region of Kibungo.
Dozens of Rwandans testified against the pair.
RSS