{"id":16284,"date":"2026-06-09T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T22:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.collectifpartiescivilesrwanda.fr\/?p=16284"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:02:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:02:44","slug":"appeal-trial-of-eugene-rwamucyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.collectifpartiescivilesrwanda.fr\/en\/appeal-trial-of-eugene-rwamucyo\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugene Rwamucyo: Appeal dismissed \u2013 27 years for genocide upheld"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Still smiling now? Dr. Eugene Rwamucyo \u2013 guilty of participating in an agreement to commit the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity – AFP\/Philippe HUGUEN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Original article on Rwanda Justice for Genocide<\/strong> website :
\nhttps:\/\/rwandajustice4genocide.org.uk\/eugene-rwamucyo\/<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

UPDATE 17 JULY 2026: GUILTY!
\nThe appeal court in Paris <\/strong>has dismissed RWAMUCYO\u2019s appeal against his original guilty verdict and upheld his 27 year sentence. At just past midnight, the accused was brought back into court to hear the verdict:
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

Eug\u00e8ne RWAMUCYO is found guilty of participating <\/b>in an agreement to commit the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity i<\/b>n the prefecture of BUTARE on the territory of Rwanda between April and July 1994, by a majority of at least 8 votes.<\/p>\n

He was also found guilty of complicity in genocide <\/b>in NGOMA, GISHAMVU, NDORA and HUYE with a majority of at least 8 votes and complicity in crimes against humanity <\/b>in NGOMA, GISHAMVU, NDORA and HUYE with a majority of at least 8 votes.
\nThe appeal court president stated that Eug\u00e8ne RWAMUCYO was\u00a0sentenced to 27 years in criminal imprisonment.<\/b> It was explained to the accused that he has a period of 10 days to make a final appeal to the court of Cassation.<\/p>\n

<\/b>After 6 weeks going over most of the same evidence and hearing the same witnesses as heard in his trial in October 2024, the conclusion was the same. Dr Rwamucyo was guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. While is daughter expressed shock at the verdict which she complained flew in the face of justice. The defence had not only employed 7 lawyers (as opposed to two at the trial) and changed tact so they now accepted there was a genocide against the Tutsi \u2013 albeit one their client, they argued, had not in any way been involved in. What was clear from the evidence was that Dr. Rwamucyo, a medical doctor working in Butare in the south of the country, had been very much a part of the extensive killing of Tutsi \u2013 and their mass burial in pits.
\nAlice Zarka, a lawyer for one of the ciil parties that helped bring the prosecution noted :\u201dThis is very good news for our civil parties in Rwanda who have been waiting for years, for 32 years, for these decisions, which will be able to begin a new path, a reconciliation,<\/em>\u201d reacts Alice Zarka, one of the lawyers of the civil parties. It is a stone in the building and it is even a stone on the graves of these people who have been able to re-bury, re-buried with dignity.<\/em> \u201d<\/p>\n

During the appeal case, Rwamucyo had again presented himself as an intellectual, a man who had been falsely accused, and who in the summer months of 1994 had just done as he was ordered in assisting to bury the bodies of the genocide victims purely for health reasons. This was dismissed by the prosecution \u2013 and the judges \u2013 as a pure fabrication. The fact Rwamucyo gave a speech on 14 May alongside one of the leading authors of the genocide \u2013 the interim prime minister Jean Kambanda around one month began in Butare province was a key point. As a leading speaker at the event he demanded support for \u2018civil defence\u2019 \u2013 a code-name for the militia and interahahmwe that was most responsible for the genocide. He elaborated on the speech a month earlier by the President Sindikubwabo who had come to Butare to demand everyone (Hutu) needed to fight and \u2018work\u2019 (a euphemism for kill) for the war\/genocide to be won.
\nEqually, Rwamucyo himself called a meeting on 23 June that expanded on a leaflet he had published the previous day calling for the mobilisation of intellectuals and political\/administrative leaders against the advance of the RPF. The burials he ordered into mass graves were on-going. Making tens of thousands of the murdered \u2018disappear\u2019 was important to the regime as a way of denying the event to international on-lookers and NGOs on the ground. The burials were a part of the genocide \u2013 making the Tutsi disappear \u2013 using caterpillar trucks to push bodies in mass graves, pit latrines and ditches, where many still lie today. Rwamucyo used to usual defence of trying to shift blame onto Paul Kagame\/ the RPF while expanding the view that Juvenal Habyarimana\u2019s regime was \u2018peaceful\u2019. Civil parities noted that the doctor was politically aligned to the CDR party \u2013 the most extreme right wing racist Hutu Power group.<\/p>\n

The case was first begun after an investigation by Alain Gauthier\u2019s CPCR civil party way back in April 2007. For 32 years Rwamucyo has escaped justice and led a happy life in retirement from his grievous crimes. Victims and survivors can take some comfort that the rest of his life will be spent in prison, where hopefully he can bring some personal insight into what he did \u2013 and maybe too some remorse for the terrible sufferable he caused \u2013 and still causes to those who will never be able to find the remains of their loved one and give them the proper burial they deserve.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 9 June 2026: The appeal case has begun for RWAMUCYO at the Paris Appeal Court
\n<\/strong>His SEVEN new lawyers will be hoping to reverse the genocide conviction and 27 year sentence handed down nearly two years ago. Updates from the appeal will appear here.<\/p>\n

Trial: Final week and verdict can be viewed HERE<\/strong><\/a>
\n<\/em>\u00a0Trial proceedings for the first 3 weeks can be viewed HERE<\/a>
\n30 October: Eugene Rwamucyo<\/strong>, 65, the extremist doctor from Butare, was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment by the Paris Assize Court late last night after a month on trial. At 8.40 pm the verdict was delivered that found Rwamucyo guilty of complicity in genocide and participation in a conspiracy to prepare genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity and participation in a conspiracy to prepare these crimes. However, he was acquitted of the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. His lawyers said they will appeal.
\nDespite the usual protestations by the former doctor and his defence team that the trial was somehow politically influenced by the current Rwandan government, and blaming everyone from prosecution experts and witnesses to the civil parties such as the Gauthier\u2019s for their part in bringing him to justice, at long last this murderous individual has been locked up. Behind the smile, the genial, Uber-smarty appearance lay a man who 30 years ago encouraged and incited the butchery of men, women and children purely because they were Tutsi and then their burial in mass graves and pits to try to hide the crime. The dead have spoken, as have the survivors with this verdict.<\/p>\n