Rwandan who killed 8 tourists, guide in Uganda gets 15-year prison sentence

KAMPALA, Uganda — A Rwandan rebel convicted of killing eight tourists and a Ugandan guide on a gorilla-watching trip was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison.

Jean-Paul Bizimana, who could have received the death penalty for the 1999 killings, appealed for lenient punishment, saying, "I have a family to look after."

"Those you killed also had families," High Court Judge John Bosco Katutsi responded sharply. "The deceased came to Uganda for pleasure, and they went back in coffins."

The judge nonetheless rejected prosecutors' request for the death sentence.

Three other men arrested in the killings have been sent to the United States to stand trial in the deaths of the two Americans — Rob Haubner and his wife, Susan Miller, of Portland — who were killed along with tourists from Britain and New Zealand.

Rwanda rebels hacked and bludgeoned the travelers to death in a remote rain forest near Uganda's borders with Congo and Rwanda where the party had gone to see the rare animals. The rebels specifically targeted English-speaking people in a bid to weaken U.S. and British support for the new Rwandan government.

Bizimana, a member of the former Rwandan army — which played a key role in the 1994 genocide of more than a half-million people in his country — was arrested in 2004 near the border with Rwanda.

The rebels invaded the tourist campground March 1, 1999, and forced 17 tourists who spoke English to remove their shoes and begin marching, the indictment said. It said the rebels killed a park guide by pushing him under a truck and setting it on fire.

During the march, eight people were killed with machetes and axes. Miller also was raped by one of the suspects, the indictment said.

Nine people survived, including one who was given a note by the rebels warning the United States and Britain not to interfere in Rwanda.