Ex-RWANDA MINISTER FINALLY GETS LIFE IN JAIL FOR RAPE+GENOCIDE

..its been a long time comin. People need to stop using women as a weapon in war, stop WarRape+Genocide

A former Rwandan minister has been jailed for life for genocide and incitement to rape at the United Nations-backed court for Rwanda in Tanzania. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who is the only women to be convicted by the court, was minister for family and women’s affairs in the Rwandan government when some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed in 1994.

She was accused of direct and public incitement to commit genocide and of being responsible for rape “as part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population on political, ethnic and racial grounds,” the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said. Her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, a militia leader who was jointly charged in the case, was also convicted Friday of genocide, crimes against humanity including rape and persecution and war crimes, and sentenced to life in prison.

Four local officials who were accused alongside Nyiramasuhuko and her son were all found guilty on genocide and other charges. They were handed prison terms ranging from 25 years to life. Nyiramasuhuko, who was arrested in 1997 in Kenya, and taken to the U.N. court in Tanzania to await trial, was found guilty on seven of the counts she faced, ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga told CNN.

They included charges of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity including rape and persecution. The court found that Nyiramasuhuko was a member of the Interim Government that issued directives whose intention “was to encourage the population to hunt down and take action against the ‘enemy’ and its ‘accomplices’; terms which referred to Tutsis in general.”

Nyiramasuhuko also participated in many Cabinet meetings at which the massacre of Tutsis was discussed “and she took part in the decisions that triggered the onslaught of massacres in Butare prefecture.” While Nyiramasuhuko is the only woman to have been convicted by the ICTR, other women have been jailed for their roles in the genocide by courts elsewhere.

*VIA CNN**