THE HAGUE, Netherlands, March 23 (UPI) -- A court in the Netherlands Monday convicted a Rwandan militia member in the torturing and killing of women and children in Rwanda in the 1990s.
However, The Hague district court acquitted Joseph Mpambara on war crime charges.
Mpambara, who had sought asylum in the Netherlands in 1998, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the torture and murder charges, Radio Netherlands reported. Prosecutors had sought a life sentence.
Mpambara was a member of the Interahamwe, a militia of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, when he participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
He was acquitted of war crimes because the judges ruled his crimes were not part of the war between Rwandan government forces and Tutsi rebels.
