In the first six months of 2001 Rwandan courts sentenced...

In the first six months of 2001 Rwandan courts sentenced 74 people to death for their part in the 1994 mass killing of Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus, a Rwandan human rights said.The Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights, in its publication 'Le Verdict', reported that 877 people were put on trial during this period. The courts handed down 192 life sentences and 180 acquittals after hearing between 5,000 and 6,000 genocide cases, AFP reported 'Le Verdict' as saying. So far, it added, 22 death sentences have been carried out; all by public firing squad in May 1998.Tens of thousands are in Rwandan prisons, the majority of them awaiting trial. Key suspects are appearing before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. This court was set up in 1994 to judge the ringleaders of the genocide in which some 800,000 people were killed.