A Swedish court on Monday sentenced death squad leader Claver Berinkindi to life in prison for genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the second such case brought by the Nordic country over crimes during the conflict, Reuters reports.
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The Stockholm District Court said Berinkindi, a Swedish citizen originally from Rwanda, was convicted of genocide and gross crime under international law consisting of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping in Rwanda.
The Stockholm District Court found that Berinkindi had participated in five massacres between April 18 and May 31, 1994. He gathered people to participate in the killing of thousands of civilians.
“There were thousands of victims on the mountain, and hundreds of victims in the communal building,” Tora Holst, who leads a prosecutorial unit created in 2008 to focus on war crimes, told the New York Times. “In the mountain, he collected and assembled people to go there, and he participated in the attack.”
The court, according to the New York newspaper, found that Berinkindi had directly taken part in killings, using machetes, spears and clubs, Holst said. “It’s about the most serious crime known to mankind.”