Rwanda's singer jailed over genocide

Rwanda’s once famous composer and singer, Simon Bikindi, 54, has been handed a 15-year jail sentence for inciting killings of ethnic Tutsis during the 1994 genocide.

Delivering the judgement yesterday, presiding judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Chamber III, Monica Weinberg de Roca, said Bikindi had been found guilty of public incitement to commit genocide in 1994.

“The Chamber recalls its finding that towards the end of June 1994, in Gisenyi Prefecture, on the main road between Kivumu and Kayove, Bikindi used public address system to state that the majority population, the Hutu, should rise up to exterminate the minority, the Tutsi,” the judge told the fully-packed court, adding that the accused used the same system to ask if people had been killing Tutsi, whom he referred as snakes.

However, the court ruled that Bikindi would get credit of seven years that he had already served in the prison while waiting his trial, which started in September, 2006, and concluded in November, last year.

Bikindi was arrested in The Netherlands in July 2001 and transferred to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha in March 2002.

Before the genocide, Bikindi was working at the ministry of Youth and Association Movements of the Rwandan government and was also director of the performance group, Irindiro Ballet. He left Rwanda on April 4, just two days before the genocide, but returned via Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) around 12 June, 1994.

He is the first Rwandan musician to be sentenced over the 1994 genocide by the UN court. When contacted for comment, ICTR’s prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, said he was satisfied with Bikindi’s conviction. (Hirondelle News Agency)