(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Lawyers for a former Rwandan minister, the first woman to be found guilty of genocide and incitement to rape by an international tribunal, appealed Tuesday for her release.
Speaking at the opening of the last appeal hearing of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), lawyer Guy Poupart asked judges to acquit Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, calling the verdict against her "unreasonable".
Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty by the Tanzanian-based court in June 2011 on seven of the 11 genocide charges she faced for atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region in 1994.
Judges at the UN court for Rwanda sentenced the mother of four to life in prison for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and rape.
Poupart said she had been sentenced on the basis of "contradictory and inconsistent statements" from witnesses who "in the same location, in a small space, had not seen or heard the same thing."
But prosecutor Alison McFarlane insisted the court had "correctly concluded" that Nyiramasuhuko had authority over those who carried out the killings and that she was "a key member of the genocidal government."
The appeal hearing includes five others, including one of her sons, who was also sentenced at the same time to the same term on related charges.
The former minister's son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who at the time of the genocide led militia groups in Butare, was sentenced to life for crimes including genocide, extermination and rape as a crime against humanity.
The four other co-accused are all former senior officials from the Butare area.
Former Butare prefect Sylvain Nsabimana was sentenced to 25 years, and his successor Alphonse Nteziryayo 30 years.
Two former mayors, Joseph Kanyabashi and Elie Ndayambaje, got 35 years and life in prison respectively.
The court will hear from lawyers for the other five convicts, after which judges will retire to deliberate, with the ICTR closing after the ruling.
The only female detainee at the UN court, Nyiramasuhuko has been appearing before its judges since 2001 in what is the longest-running trial at the ICTR.
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