Court convicts Rwanda genocide chief

DAR ES SALAAM - A UN court trying masterminds of Rwanda's genocide has convicted a former mayor for abetting the 1994 slaughter, but dropped three counts including genocide.

Following a plea bargain, Paul Bisengimana, ex-mayor of Gikoro, will be convicted for murder and extermination as crimes against humanity. Judges in his trial dismissed three other charges including genocide and rape.

"The trial chamber granted the prosecutors request to withdraw the remaining three counts and dismissed the said counts in conformity with the plea agreement," said a statement by the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The tiny central African country was plunged into a 100-day killing frenzy that saw extremists from the Hutu ethnic group kill some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Many Tutsi women and girls were raped.

Bisengimana's original indictment said that he ordered Tutsi women to be raped "to ascertain if they tasted any different from Hutu women".

It also alleges that between April 9 and 13, 1994, he was involved in transporting soldiers, Hutu militias, weapons and fuel during killings in Musha parish, Gikongoro commune.

Thousands of people who sought refuge at Musha church were killed between April and June.

The judges are yet to sentence him.

The ICTR is under intense pressure to meet a United Nations deadline to wrap up investigations by the end of this year and all trials by 2008.

With only 27 cases completed another 17 yet to start and nine suspects still at large, the tribunal has been forced to hand over some cases to Rwanda's judicial authorities.

Critics say the ICTR has been too slow and too unwilling to tackle alleged atrocities by Rwanda's Tutsi rulers, who came to power after the genocide.

- REUETRS