Bernard Ntuyahaga
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Bernard Ntuyahaga | |
|---|---|
 Ntuyahaga during his trial for murder | |
| Born | c. 1952 (age 73–74) |
| Allegiance | Rwandan Armed Forces |
| Rank | Major |
| Criminal information | |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Penalty | 20 years (released 2018) |
Major Bernard Ntuyahaga (probably born in 1952) is a Rwandan army officer convicted by a Belgian court for the murders of ten United Nations peacekeepers at the start of the Rwandan Genocide. He was released in 2018 and returned against his will to Rwanda.[1]
Bernard Ntuyahaga was born in Mabanza, Kibuye Prefecture in the Belgian mandate of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda). He was an ethnic Hutu.[2] In 1972, he went to the army officer's school in Kigali. At the time of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, he held the rank of major in the Rwandan Armed Forces.[3]
On 7 April 1994, the day after the assassinations of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, the house of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, which was under the protection of fifteen peacekeepers under the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), was surrounded by soldiers of the Rwandan Armed Forces. After the five Ghanaian and ten Belgian peacekeepers were disarmed, the Ghanaians were released and Madame Agathe and her husband were murdered.[3] The murders were carried out in front of Ntuyahaga and other soldiers.[4]
A Belgian court later found that Ntuyahaga had transported the ten Belgian prisoners, all members of the 2nd Commando Battalion, to the military camp in Kigali where they were subsequently killed by fellow Rwandan soldiers. He was further found to have murdered an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians during the genocide and sentenced to twenty years in prison.[5]
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