Rwandan tribunals sentenced 18 people to death in 2003...

Rwandan tribunals sentenced 18 people to death in 2003 for their participation in the 1994 genocide, according to Amnesty International in a report it released the previous week on the state of human rights in the world. "18 people were sentenced to death though no one was executed", said the report pointing out that "over 450 genocide suspects were tried, considerably less than in 2002". Even though capital punishment is entrenched in the Rwandan penal code, the last execution of those guilty of genocide dated back to April 24, 1998 when 22 people, including the former vice president of the Democratic and Republican Movement (MDR), Frodouald Karamira, were publicly executed. The MDR was accused of divisive politics and banned in 2003.