afrol News, 14 December - A former Rwandan journalist Valerie Bemeriki was sentenced to life imprisonment for her role in the 1994 infamous genocide.

Ms Bemeriki who was convicted by a grassroots Gacaca court in Kigali of planning genocide has reportedly confessed to having used one of the famous radio station in the country to call on Hutus to kill Tutsis.

She was one of the most prominent voices of Radio Mille Collines - a station which became notorious for its encouragement of the slaughter, according to local reports.

Although Rwandan media were reportedly part of the genocide machinery influencing what had led to the mass killing of Tutsi and moderate Hutus in 1994, international media stood by in silence as the horrendous crime went on.

The station was launched in 1993, backed by relatives of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana whose death in a plane crash helped to trigger the genocide.

The genocide claimed the lives of some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis killed by extremist Hutu militia, in the space of just 100 days.

The ICTR, based in Arusha in Tanzania, has convicted 28 people and acquitted five who were behind the 1994 genocide.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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