The High Court Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes (HCCIC) based in Nyanza District has dismissed the appeal of Béatrice Munyenyezi and upheld her life imprisonment sentence for her role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The decision, delivered on September 30, confirmed the judgment of the Huye Intermediate Court, which found Munyenyezi guilty of four genocide-related offences and sentenced her to life imprisonment. The appellate court ruled that Munyenyezi’s appeal was unfounded and that the offences for which she was convicted had been proven. Munyenyezi was convicted of murder as a genocide crime, complicity in genocide, incitement to commit genocide and complicity in rape. ALSO READ: Beatrice Munyenyezi sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide crimes She had appealed the Huye Intermediate Court judgment, with the appeal proceedings beginning on April 12, 2024. The Huye High Court had acquitted her of the charge of planning genocide, citing insufficient evidence to prove the offence. Throughout the proceedings, Munyenyezi and her lawyers denied the charges and sought her acquittal. The Huye Intermediate Court convicted Munyenyezi in 2024 for her involvement in Genocide crimes committed in the former Butare prefecture, now Huye District. It also found that she encouraged Interahamwe to kill Tutsi and played a role in facilitating the rape of women and girls at a hotel owned by her mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko. In her defence, Munyenyezi maintained that she had been staying at her mother-in-law’s hotel, where more than 60 people were present during the Genocide, and argued that her alleged involvement would have been known to those around her. She also relied on her pregnancy at the time as part of her defence. Munyenyezi was deported to Rwanda from the United States on April 16, 2021, after serving a 10-year sentence imposed by a US court in connection with immigration fraud. In 2013, a US court convicted her of lying about her role in the 1994 Genocide while applying for immigration benefits that would allow her to remain in the United States. She was also closely associated with her mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for her role in the Genocide. Nyiramasuhuko and her son Ntahobali were initially sentenced to life imprisonment by the ICTR. Their sentences were later reduced on appeal to 47 years each, and they are serving those sentences.
