The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Wednesday reduced the sentence of a Rwandan priest, Father Emmanuel Rukundo.

Appeals judges at the court in Arusha, Tanzania affirmed the Rukondo's conviction, a former Military Chaplain, for genocide, murder and extermination at Saint Joseph’s College and for the killing of Tutsi refugees abducted from the Saint Léon Minor Seminary.

The UN judges ruled, however, that Rukondo (51) rather aided and abetted these crimes than personally committing them as the trial chamber had found on 27 February 2009. The appeals chamber also reversed Rukundo’s conviction for genocide by causing serious mental harm to a Tutsi woman when he sexually assaulted her.

Rukundo’s sentence has now been reduced  to 23 years of imprisonment from the 25 years he had previously been sentenced to. The prosecutor's appeal - who sought a life sentence -was dismissed in its entirety.

The ICTR appeals chamber, also on Wednesday, affirmed the conviction of Callixte Kalimanzira, former directeur de cabinet in the Ministry of Interior, for aiding and abetting genocide at Kabuye hill but reduced his sentence from the 30 years imprisonment to 25 years. The appeals judges reversed Kalimanzira’s remaining convictions after finding several factual and legal errors by the trial chamber.

On 22 June 2009, the ICTR found Kalimanzira guilty of instigating and aiding and abetting genocide at the roadblock on Butare-Gisagara road around 22 April 1994, at Kabuye hill on 23 April 1994 and at the
inauguration of Élie Ndayambaje as bourgmestre of Muganza Commune on 22 June 1994.

In addition, it convicted Kalimanzira for committing direct and public incitement to commit genocide in Butare prefecture.