Athanase Seromba
Athanase Seromba | |
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Occupation | Priest |
Criminal charge | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/> |
Criminal penalty |
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Criminal status | Active |
Athanase Seromba (born 1963) is a Rwandan priest who was found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide and of crimes against humanity committed in the Rwandan genocide.[1][2]
At the time of the genocide, Seromba was priest of a Catholic parish at Nyange in the Kibuye province of western Rwanda. He was charged with the deaths of around 2,000 Tutsis who took refuge in his parish church. According to the charges brought against him, Seromba ordered his church to be bulldozed on April 6 1994, and then shot some survivors.[1]
Seromba fled Rwanda in July 1994, and later moved to Italy and continued working as a priest for the Catholic Church near the city of Florence using the alias Anastasio Sumba Bura. Under pressure from Carla Del Ponte, the then Chief UN War Crimes Prosecutor, Seromba surrendered himself to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on February 6, 2002. On February 8, 2002, he pleaded not guilty to the charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity. His trial began on September 20, 2004, before the Third Trial Chamber of the ICTR. On 13 December 2006, he was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.[3]
Seromba appealed the verdict. On 12 March 2008, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) decided his responsibility was even greater than previously found, affirmed his conviction, and increased his sentence to a life sentence.[4]
On 27 June 2009, Seromba was transferred to Benin. Seromba is serving his life sentence at Akpro-Missérété prison at Porto-Novo, Benin.[5]
See also
Notes and references
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External links
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- Articles with hCards
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- 1963 births
- Living people
- Hutu people
- Rwandan Roman Catholic priests
- Members of the clergy with criminal convictions
- People convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
- Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by international courts and tribunals
- Rwandan people convicted of crimes against humanity
- Rwandan people convicted of genocide
- Rwandan prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
- Rwandan people stubs