A court in Paris has sentenced a former Rwandan doctor to 27 years in jail for crimes committed during the 1994 genocide, during which several thousands of people were killed.

The decision on Wednesday comes more than 14 years after Eugene Rwamucyo was arrested in the French capital. He had been on Interpol’s wanted list since 2006.

An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by extremist Hutu factions during the East African nation’s 100-day bloodbath three decades ago.

Prosecutors had sought a 30-year prison sentence for Rwamucyo, accusing him of being part of a “war committee” that planned the genocide against Tutsis in the southern town of Butare, where he was at the time. Rwamucyo, born to a Hutu family, also allegedly ordered the mass burial of Tutsis in the town, including survivors of the massacre.

Angelique Uwamahoro, one of several witnesses who traveled to Paris for the former medic’s month-long trial, said she saw Rwamucyo at a roadblock in Butare and overheard him urging militiamen to kill Tutsis, according to the Associated Press.

“He wanted to incite them to kill us so we don’t get out alive,” the witness, who was 13 at the time of the incident, reportedly stated.

The Assize Court found him guilty of “complicity in genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity,” and “conspiring” to lay the groundwork for such atrocities by spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and attempting to conceal the evidence. The judges, however, acquitted him of the charges of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” 

The 65-year-old former public health director denied any wrongdoing throughout the French tribunal’s hearing. “I assure you that I did not order the killing of survivors or allow survivors to be killed,” Rwamucyo said in his final statement prior to the verdict on Wednesday, according to AFP.

“I understand the suffering of those who are still looking for their loved ones… but I cannot help them,” he stated. His lawyers have reportedly argued that his involvement in burials in mass graves had been driven by a desire to prevent a “health crisis.” 

Rwamucyo’s prosecution marks the eighth by French authorities in connection with the landlocked state’s genocide. France has been a popular destination for those who fled justice in Rwanda after being implicated in the 1994 killings.

Last December, the Paris-based Assize Court found another former Rwandan doctor, Sosthene Munyemana, guilty of genocide and handed him a 24-year jail sentence. The jury earlier sent 66-year-old former Rwandan military police officer Philippe Hategekimana to life in prison for the same charges in June 2023.

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