MASS KILLER DIES
…Rwandan genocide ‘kingpin’ Theoneste Bagosora dies in Mali prison
BAMAKO- A former Rwandan army colonel who was accused of masterminding the slaughter of 800, 000 people during the 1994 genocide has died in prison in Mali, Malian officials said at the weekend.
His son Achille said he died at a hospital in Bamako, where he was being treated for heart issues.
Theoneste Bagosora was serving a 35-year sentence after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by the then International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Prosecutors accused Bagosora, then cabinet director in the defence ministry, of taking control of military and political affairs after President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down in 1994.
Bagosora was arrested two
years later in Cameroon, where he had fled to after Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front seized power.
The Tanzania-based tribunal accused Bagosora of being in charge of the troops and Interahamwe Hutu militia who killed some 800, 000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.
Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of United Nations peacekeepers during the genocide, described Bagosora as the "kingpin" behind the killings and said the former colonel had threatened to kill him.
Bagosora was initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but three years later some charges were overturned and his term was reduced to 35 years.
Earlier this year he was denied a request for early release, and was due to finish his sentence at the age of 89.
He was serving his sentence in Mali's Koulikoro prison, along with many others convicted for roles in the Rwandan genocide.