(AFP) – Oct 11, 2007

KIGALI (AFP) — A Rwandan court convicted a former official now living in Belgium of rape and incitement to rape, months after he was acquitted of genocide by the UN tribunal, state media reported Thursday.

The criminal court in the southern Rusizi district on Wednesday handed down a life sentence to Emmanuel Bagambiki, governor of Cyangugu in the south during the 1994 genocide, said Radio Rwanda.

"Bagambiki was found guilty of having raped girls and women and of having incited others to do so," the station reported.

In July, Bagambiki returned to his wife and children at his home in Brussels.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) acquitted him on war crimes and genocide charges in February 2004, confirming the ruling on appeal in February 2006.

Rwanda responded by opening its own case on charges that had not gone before the ICTR.

The international tribunal, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania, is charged with tracking down and trying the authors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The genocide was sparked by the assassination in April 1994 of then Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana. Some 800,000 people -- mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus -- were massacred by Hutu extremists.

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