Arusha � The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Monday handed dowm a life sentence to a lieutenant from the former Rwandan army, found guilty of genocide, murder and rape.

In 1994 Ildephonse Hategekimana was the commander of the military camp of Ngoma on the outskirts of Butare, a small town in southern Rwanda.

“The chamber sentences the accused to life imprisonment,” presiding judge Arlette Ramaroson said.

Hategekimana was notably found guilty of having ordered the singling out, abduction and massacre of Tutsis from a convent close to his camp on April 30.

The court also found he had condoned and encouraged rapes.

Hategekimana’s lawyer Jean de Dieu Momo told journalists after the hearing that his client would appeal the ruling.

The lieutenant was arrested in Congo Republic in 2003 and transfered to the ICTR.

The ICTR, based in Arusha in northern Tanzania, was set up to try the masterminds of the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 people, for the most part minority Tutsis, were killed.