A Rwandan man convicted of hiding his involvement in the country’s 1994 genocide in an attempt to win asylum in the U.S. was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison.
Jean Leonard Teganya participated in at least seven murders and five rapes during the genocide, in which Hutu extremists slaughtered Tutsis and Hutus who tried to protect them, prosecutors said.
He was found guilty in April of immigration fraud and perjury after authorities say he lied on his asylum application to portray himself as a victim rather than a perpetrator of the massacre.
Teganya denies playing a role in the genocide, in which some 800,000 people were slaughtered over a 100-day period.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said he struggled with his sentencing decision, noting the enormity of the tragedy and the allegations against Teganya, but also that the man was not charged in his courtroom of the rapes and murders.
“The basic question is: Do I sentence him as a liar or do I sentence him as a murder, or a rapist, or genocide participant?” Saylor asked.
Teganya declined to speak during the hearing, and his lawyer declined to comment afterward.
As a medical student in 1994, authorities said, Teganya helped soldiers find Tutsis who were hiding at a hospital in Butare so they could be killed or raped, and participated in some of those killings and rapes himself.
He fled Rwanda after the genocide ended and went to Canada, where he was denied refugee status because of his role in the massacre, prosecutors said. He was arrested by U.S. border agents in 2014 when he illegally crossed into Maine and claimed asylum.
