SOUTHERN PROVINCE NYANZA - GISAGARA – A man has been sentenced to life in prison for beheading his mother.Damien Harindintwari, a Genocide suspect, was on Thursday convicted by the Nyanza High Court for killing Costasia Mukamurara, a Genocide survivor.The other three suspects in the case were acquitted.Harindintwari, whose father was a Hutu, had earlier been granted provisional release after he confessed of his culpability during the 1994 Genocide in which at least one million ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus perished.Harindintware, Jaclyn Nyiramana, Jean Damascene Ruhashya and Jean Baptiste Rugambwa, all from the same family, were arrested in October this year after Mukamurara was beheaded. Mukamurara was a resident of Gikonko Sector, Gisagara District in the Southern Province.Reading out the verdict before a heavily packed courtroom, presiding judge Kagirwa Gashongore, said that court found sufficient evidence to prove that Harindintwari had a direct hand in the killing of his mother on the night of August 31.“Based on the evidence adduced by prosecution, confessions from the defendant (Harindintwari) and testimonies from the public, this finds Damien Harindintwari guilty of killing Costasia Mukamurara,” Gashongore said.“Court therefore hands out a maximum sentence to Damien Harindintwari, which is life imprisonment,” he ruled. Rwanda mid this year abolished death sentence.Court heard that on the night Mukamurara was killed, no other person was in the house except Harindintware. Therefore no one else could be held accountable for the murder since he [Harindintware] failed to name the people he found outside whom he alleged killed Mukamurara, the judge ruled.“Harindintwari’s claim that he called for help from neighbours could not be substantiated. People on night patrol and neighbours within 5 metres denied hearing any such calls which are alleged to have been made as early as 9.00pm,” he added.Gashongore also stripped Harindintwari of rights to vote, being voted, and getting involved in professional teaching, treating people, among others.The convict was also fined Frw2, 137, failure of which would lead to auctioning off of his property.Acquitting the three other accused, the judge said that Prosecution did not produce sufficient evidence to show that Nyiramana, Ruhashya and Rugambwa had a hand in the death of Mukamurara. He ordered for their immediate release.The convict is said to have killed his mother for fear that he would testify against him with regard to Genocide crimes.Several members of Harindintwari’s paternal family are alleged to have participated in the Genocide, although some of them like his father were married to Tutsi spouses.Harindintwari was arrested after the Genocide but released after he confessed his crimes and promised to cooperate with Gacaca courts in revealing what happened during that period.Mukamurara is said to have on several occasions urged Harindintware to testify against members of her husband’s family who had a hand in Genocide.This didn’t go down well with some family members including Harindintware who is said to have once threatened to put Mukamurara (his mother) ‘out of the way’ so as to protect his father’s family.Meanwhile Genocide survivors in the area hailed the sentence and urged local authorities to do more by putting in place proactive measures to protect Genocide survivors.“Crimes like these greatly hinder the spirit of Unity and Reconciliation,” the representative of survivors in Gikonko Sector Jean Bosco Havugimana, said.Meanwhile, another trial of suspected killers of a Gacaca president in Karama Sector, Huye District in the Southern Province, Paul Rutayisire, is expected to be completed soon.Ends
