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Rwandan rebel gets 15-year sentence for bloody murder
A Rwandan rebel convicted of killing eight Americans and Europeans and a Ugandan tour guide dodged the death penalty and received a 15-year jail sentence.
High Court Judge John Bosco Katusi in Kampala, Uganda, gave Jean-Paul Bizimada the sentence after he appealed for mercy.
“My Lord, I pray for lenience because I have a family to look after,” Mr Bizimana said in court.
“Those you killed also had families. These people were killed in cold blood and you were part of the gang….the deceased came to Uganda for pleasure, and they went back in coffins,” the judge said.
The tourists were on a Ugandan gorilla-watching tour in 1999.
Three other men arrested in March of 2003 in connection with the killings have been sent to the US to stand trial in the deaths of the two Americans in the party.
Rwandan rebels hacked and bludgeoned the travelers to death in a remote rain forest near Uganda’s border with Congo.
The rebels invaded a tourist campground and forced 17 people who spoke English to remove their shoes before marching, according to the government. The rebels killed a park guide by pushing him under a truck and setting a fire.
During the march, eight people were killed with machetes and axes. One woman was also raped.
Nine people survived, including one given a note by the rebels warning that the US and Britain should not interfere in Rwanda.
Report by David Wilkening
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