The Hague district court on April 4 sentenced Eugene N., a Rwandan man living in the Netherlands, to life in prison for his role in the killing of thousands during the 1994 genocide in the Central African nation. The sentence was handed down after a panel of judges found him guilty of genocide and war crimes.
The ruling said Eugene N.'s actions showed "a serious disregard for human dignity and human life." The judges emphasized that only a life sentence could do justice to "the immense suffering endured by the victims and their families."
The defendant, identified only as Eugene N., took part in looting and burning homes in two predominantly Tutsi communities before joining a mob that attacked about 3,000 Tutsi sheltering at a stadium in Mbazi in April 1994. The court determined he instructed the Hutu attackers to ensure no one escaped and threw grenades into the crowd. Survivors of the initial assault were later beaten and hacked to death.
Eugene N., aged 66 or 67, left the Netherlands in 1998 and later became a Dutch citizen. Rwanda sought his extradition in 2014, but Dutch law protects citizens from being transferred. Prosecutors opened a case file in 2020, interviewed more than 30 witnesses before arresting him in 2024.
Eugene N. denied all charges. His defense lawyer described him as having tried to stop violence and having lost dozens of relatives, calling the client "a broken man." However, prosecutors countered: "If the terrible crimes of this suspect do not merit a life sentence, what does?"
The 1994 Rwandan genocide claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi, during roughly three months of violence orchestrated by Hutu nationalist leaders. A United Nations tribunal prosecuted the main organizers, but European courts later tried lower-level suspects under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which permits trials for crimes and war crimes regardless of where they occurred.
Dutch courts have previously convicted other genocide suspects and in some cases extradited them to Rwanda.
