ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) — The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Friday cancelled a 25 year jail term against a military official void Friday and ordered a new trial on only one of the charges against him.
The ICTR had in September 2006 sentenced Tharcisse Muvunyi on charges including genocide and incitement to genocide.
"The appeals chamber quashes the sentence of 25 years imprisonment, orders that Muvunyi is to remain in the custody of the tribunal pending his retrial", said the president of the appeals court, Fausto Pocar.
The appeals court said there was insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict against Muvunyi -- who in the mid-1990s was based in a school for non-commissioned officers in southern Rwanda -- on charges of "genocide" and "other inhuman acts".
The court has instead ordered a new trial to focus on a speech Muvunyi gave in the Butare region in 1994, for which he could be charged with inciting genocide.
The initial verdict established that Muvunyi had not planned or personally ordered genocide, but neither had he taken action against criminal acts by subordinates when he was informed of them.
The Tanzania-based ICTR is investigating and bringing to justice suspects involved in the Rwanda genocide and has so far handed out 30 sentences and five acquittals.
The United Nations estimates that some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists in Rwanda, between April and July 1994.
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