Eugene Rwamucyo: Appeal dismissed – 27 years for genocide upheld

Still smiling now? Dr. Eugene Rwamucyo – guilty of participating in an agreement to commit the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity – Photo: AFP

UPDATE 17 JULY 2026: GUILTY!
The appeal court in Paris has dismissed RWAMUCYO’s appeal against his original guilty verdict and upheld his 27 year sentence. At just past midnight, the accused was brought back into court to hear the verdict:

Eugène RWAMUCYO is found guilty of participating in an agreement to commit the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity in the prefecture of BUTARE on the territory of Rwanda between April and July 1994, by a majority of at least 8 votes.

He was also found guilty of complicity in genocide in NGOMA, GISHAMVU, NDORA and HUYE with a majority of at least 8 votes and complicity in crimes against humanity in NGOMA, GISHAMVU, NDORA and HUYE with a majority of at least 8 votes.
The appeal court president stated that Eugène RWAMUCYO was sentenced to 27 years in criminal imprisonment. It was explained to the accused that he has a period of 10 days to make a final appeal to the court of Cassation.

After 6 weeks going over most of the same evidence and hearing the same witnesses as heard in his trial in October 2024, the conclusion was the same. Dr Rwamucyo was guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. While is daughter expressed shock at the verdict which she complained flew in the face of justice. The defence had not only employed 7 lawyers (as opposed to two at the trial) and changed tact so they now accepted there was a genocide against the Tutsi – albeit one their client, they argued, had not in any way been involved in. What was clear from the evidence was that Dr. Rwamucyo, a medical doctor working in Butare in the south of the country, had been very much a part of the extensive killing of Tutsi – and their mass burial in pits.
Alice Zarka, a lawyer for one of the ciil parties that helped bring the prosecution noted :”This is very good news for our civil parties in Rwanda who have been waiting for years, for 32 years, for these decisions, which will be able to begin a new path, a reconciliation,” reacts Alice Zarka, one of the lawyers of the civil parties. It is a stone in the building and it is even a stone on the graves of these people who have been able to re-bury, re-buried with dignity. ”

During the appeal case, Rwamucyo had again presented himself as an intellectual, a man who had been falsely accused, and who in the summer months of 1994 had just done as he was ordered in assisting to bury the bodies of the genocide victims purely for health reasons. This was dismissed by the prosecution – and the judges – as a pure fabrication. The fact Rwamucyo gave a speech on 14 May alongside one of the leading authors of the genocide – the interim prime minister Jean Kambanda around one month began in Butare province was a key point. As a leading speaker at the event he demanded support for ‘civil defence’ – a code-name for the militia and interahahmwe that was most responsible for the genocide. He elaborated on the speech a month earlier by the President Sindikubwabo who had come to Butare to demand everyone (Hutu) needed to fight and ‘work’ (a euphemism for kill) for the war/genocide to be won.
Equally, Rwamucyo himself called a meeting on 23 June that expanded on a leaflet he had published the previous day calling for the mobilisation of intellectuals and political/administrative leaders against the advance of the RPF. The burials he ordered into mass graves were on-going. Making tens of thousands of the murdered ‘disappear’ was important to the regime as a way of denying the event to international on-lookers and NGOs on the ground. The burials were a part of the genocide – making the Tutsi disappear – using caterpillar trucks to push bodies in mass graves, pit latrines and ditches, where many still lie today. Rwamucyo used to usual defence of trying to shift blame onto Paul Kagame/ the RPF while expanding the view that Juvenal Habyarimana’s regime was ‘peaceful’. Civil parities noted that the doctor was politically aligned to the CDR party – the most extreme right wing racist Hutu Power group.

The case was first begun after an investigation by Alain Gauthier’s CPCR civil party way back in April 2007. For 32 years Rwamucyo has escaped justice and led a happy life in retirement from his grievous crimes. Victims and survivors can take some comfort that the rest of his life will be spent in prison, where hopefully he can bring some personal insight into what he did – and maybe too some remorse for the terrible sufferable he caused – and still causes to those who will never be able to find the remains of their loved one and give them the proper burial they deserve.

UPDATE 9 June 2026: The appeal case has begun for RWAMUCYO at the Paris Appeal Court
His SEVEN new lawyers will be hoping to reverse the genocide conviction and 27 year sentence handed down nearly two years ago. Updates from the appeal will appear here.

Trial: Final week and verdict can be viewed HERE
 Trial proceedings for the first 3 weeks can be viewed HERE
30 October: Eugene Rwamucyo, 65, the extremist doctor from Butare, was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment by the Paris Assize Court late last night after a month on trial. At 8.40 pm the verdict was delivered that found Rwamucyo guilty of complicity in genocide and participation in a conspiracy to prepare genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity and participation in a conspiracy to prepare these crimes. However, he was acquitted of the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. His lawyers said they will appeal.
Despite the usual protestations by the former doctor and his defence team that the trial was somehow politically influenced by the current Rwandan government, and blaming everyone from prosecution experts and witnesses to the civil parties such as the Gauthier’s for their part in bringing him to justice, at long last this murderous individual has been locked up. Behind the smile, the genial, Uber-smarty appearance lay a man who 30 years ago encouraged and incited the butchery of men, women and children purely because they were Tutsi and then their burial in mass graves and pits to try to hide the crime. The dead have spoken, as have the survivors with this verdict.
 Genocide survivors eagerly await Rwamucyo’s trial – a short film by France 24
The charges against Eugene Rwamucyo:

1. 1. Participation in a group or conspiracy established with a view to the preparation of genocide and other crimes against humanity
      for having, in the prefecture of Butare and on the territory of Rwanda, between April and July 1994, participated in a group or conspiracy established with a view to the preparation, characterized by one or more material facts, of the crimes defined by articles 211-1 and 212-1 of the Penal Code, in particular
      by speaking publicly on May 14, 1994 at the National University of Rwanda on behalf of the Cercle des républicains, alongside Prime Minister Jean KAMBANDA, and by organizing a round-table discussion on June 22 or 23, 1994, on behalf of the Cercle des républicains and the Groupe des défenseurs de la nation,
      by participating in prefectural security councils, and by taking all necessary steps to conceal and bury the mass murder of Tutsi civilians in the Butare region, in consultation with local authorities and the government.
      3. Genocide
      for having, between April and July 1994, in the prefecture of Butare and on the territory of Rwanda, in particular in the communes of Ngoma, Gishamvu, Ndora, in execution of a concerted plan aimed at the total or partial destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, or of a group determined on the basis of any other arbitrary criterion, in this case the Tutsi ethnic group, committed or caused to be committed wilful attacks on life and serious attacks on physical or mental integrity, in this case by ordering the completion and burial of survivors during the operations to bury Tutsi civilian victims of massacres which he supervised and directed, or at least by accepting and encouraging them by his presence and position.
      3. Complicity in genocide
      for having, between April and July 1994, in the prefecture of Butare and on the territory of Rwanda, in particular in the cimmunes of Ngoma, Gishamvu, Ndora, and Huye, in execution of a concerted plan aimed at the total or partial destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, or of a group determined on the basis of any other arbitrary criterion, in this case the Tutsi ethnic group, by aiding and abetting the perpetrators of the massacres, by organizing and directing the mass burial of Tutsi civilians, while the massacres were in progress, thus enabling the crime to continue:
      – by concealing evidence of the genocide,
      – by implementing the logistics of genocide.
      4. Crime against humanity other than genocide
      for having, between April and July 1994, in the prefecture of Butare, and on the territory of Rwanda, in particular in the communes of Ngoma, Gishamvu, Ndora, participated in a massive and systematic practice of summary executions, torture or inhuman acts, inspired by political, philosophical, racial or religious motives, and organized in execution of a concerted plan against a civilian population, in this case the Tutsi ethnic group, by organizing and directing operations for the burial of civilian victims, during which survivors were finished off or buried alive, on his instructions and under his supervision.
      5. Complicity in crimes against humanity other than genocide
      for having, between April and July 1994, in the prefecture of Butare, and on the territory of Kwanda, in particular in the municipalities of Ngoma, Gishamvu, Ndora, and Huye, been complicit in a massive and systematic practice of summary executions, torture or inhuman acts, inspired by political, philosophical, organized in execution of a concerted plan against a civilian population, in this case the Tutsi ethnic group, by aiding and abetting the perpetrators of the massacres by organizing and directing the mass burial of Tutsi civilians, while the massacres were in progress, and thus enabling the continuation of the crime:
      – by concealing evidence of the genocide,
      – by implementing the logistics of the genocide.
      

Eugène RWAMUCYO is the 8th Rwandan national to be tried in France for his involvement in the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. All have been found guilty. This is the 9th trial in 1st instance for crimes against humanity and torture in France, and the 7th trial in 1st instance since autumn 2021, in application of the hearing policy put in place by the national anti-terrorist package and the public prosecutor’s office at the Paris court of appeal, which aims to have two criminal cases for crimes against humanity, war crimes and misdemeanors or torture tried each year. Some sixty witnesses and experts have been summoned to appear before the Assize Court for this trial.

Background to the case
Rwamucyo also lectured at the National University of Rwanda. He is alleged to have been part of a notorious ‘war committee’ that planned the genocide against the Tutsi in Butare, killing Tutsi patients and students in the town. He is also suspected of having ordered the mass burial of Tutsis in Butare, including some victims who were still alive.

Rwamucyo fled to France after 1994. Between 2001 – 2007 he worked as a medical specialist in the country, despite having refugee status denied in 2002. In May 2008 he was employed in a city hospital in Maubeuge, northern France but was dismissed after the justice campaign group CPCR brought charges against him. In 2009 a Gacaca court in Rwanda sentenced Rwamucyo to life imprisonment in absentia for genocide.

On May 26, 2010, Rwamucyo was arrested in Sannois, north of Paris, when attending the funeral of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, the Rwandan Hutu hate-media director, who had been convicted by the ICTR for genocide and had died in jail. A French court then ruled Rwamucyo could not be extradited to Rwanda and set him free. In 2018 French investigators finally began to look in Rwamucyo’s case and on 17 April 2020 issued an indictment.

On 28 September 2022 – 15 years after the original CPCR complaint – Rwamucyo was informed that he will face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity before the Paris Court of Assizes. His appeal was rejected. His lawyer immediately announced that he would appeal to the Supreme Court, allowing his client to gain a few more months before being tried. On 9 January 2023 news agencies reported that this final appeal had failed and Rwamucyo would face trial in the not–too–distant future.

Given the expectation of yet more judicial delays, due to two already-scheduled genocide trials and appeal hearings, Rwamucyo’s case may not be heard in 2023. A trial date is still to be announced.

Unlike Bucyibarua and Kabuga, where old age and ill health has been a factor in their detention and trial, Rwamucyo is still comparatively young and there is still a real hope by survivors that he may face justice 28 years and counting for the horrific crimes for which he is accused.

January 2023: Rwamucyo starts a gofundme campaign to raise money for his legal expenses. In his explanation for why the funds are needed, he blames the fact he a political opponent of the RPF, who have slandered him and are responsible for his legal ‘suffering’. There is, of course, no mention of the genocide, no mention of his alleged crimes and complicity in the genocide, no mention or remorse for what happened in 1994. Just blame for the survivors organisation Ibuka. As ever, he is the victim and the survivors are now cast as the persecutors in what has become a well-versed tactic of reversing the reality of the affair. The list of those who have given to his crowdfunding ‘SOS’ are mostly anonymous apart from certain well-known figures from the families of Kabuga and Bagosora. After two months, he has reached 2,6000 Euros of his 10,000 euro target.