![The skulls and bones of some of those who were slaughtered during the 1994 genocide in Ntarama, Rwanda [File: Ben Curtis/AP]](https://angelnetworknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ap_6a917d33a129b-1787919667.webp "The skulls and bones of some of those who were slaughtered during the 1994 genocide in Ntarama, Rwanda [File: Ben Curtis/AP]")
A Dutch court has sentenced a Rwandan man to life imprisonment for his role in the murder of thousands during the 1994 genocide.
The Hague district court found Eugene N., aged 66 or 67, guilty of war crimes and genocide on Friday.
Judges described his conduct as showing a “significant lack of respect for human dignity and for human life,” stating that only a life sentence would serve justice “to the immense suffering that has been inflicted on the victims and the bereaved families.”
The court said Eugene N. helped ransack and burn homes in two mostly Tutsi communities before joining a mob that attacked around 3,000 Tutsis sheltering in a stadium in Mbazi in April 1994.
He directed Hutu attackers to let no one escape and threw a grenade into the crowd. Survivors of the initial assault were later beaten and hacked to death.
Eugene N. fled to the Netherlands in 1998 and later obtained Dutch citizenship. Rwanda sought his extradition in 2014, but Dutch law prevents the handover of nationals. Prosecutors opened their case in 2020 and arrested him in 2024 after questioning more than 30 witnesses.
He denied involvement. His defence portrayed him as having tried to stop the violence and as a man who lost dozens of relatives himself, describing him as “a broken man.”
Prosecutors countered: “If the horrific crimes of the suspect … do not deserve a life sentence, then what does?”
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda killed more than 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, in about three months.
