The capital crimes in Rwanda are murder, robbery, sorcery, offences against the State, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The capital crimes in Rwanda are murder, robbery, sorcery, offences against the State, genocide and crimes against humanity.
In 1994, around 800,000 Rwandans were massacred in just 100 days. The genocide was the worst point of decades of conflict between the politically dominant Tutsi minority and the majority Hutus that had flared in coups and conflicts since independence from Belgium in 1962.
The civil war that broke out in 1990 culminated in 1994 when, in April, Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana and the Burundian president were killed after their plane was shot down over Kigali. The rebel, mainly Tutsi, Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a major offensive and extremist Hutu militia and elements of the Rwandan military began the systematic massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. By July the RPF had overthrown the Hutu regime and Hutu militias fled to Zaire, taking with them around 2 million Hutu refugees. Some joined Zairean forces to attack local Tutsis and Rwanda responded by invading refugee camps dominated by Hutu militiamen. Meanwhile, Laurent Kabila, who seized control of Zaire and renamed it the DR Congo, failed to banish the Hutu extremists, prompting Rwanda to support the rebels trying to overthrow him. Rwanda withdrew its forces from DR Congo in late 2002 after signing a peace deal with Kinshasa.
On August 25, 2003 Rwanda held its first multi-candidate national elections since independence; President Paul Kagame, who had held the presidency since the Transitional National Assembly elected him in April 2000, was elected to a 7-year term in largely peaceful but seriously marred elections. In September, President Kagame's party, the RPF, won the majority of the seats during legislative elections and therefore remained the principal political force.
The government of Rwanda maintains a list of 1994 genocide suspects, which is divided into four categories, ranging from alleged planners and killers to those who looted or committed other less serious crimes. Those on category one face the death penalty if tried in Rwanda.
Of the 120,000 suspects charged with crimes related to the 1994 genocide, only 7,211 cases were completed by the national courts between 1997, when courts began functioning again, and June 2002: 689 people were sentenced to death, 22 of whom were executed in 1998; others received various sentences ranging from life to a few years imprisonment; 1,386 were acquitted. In the first half of 2002, 757 people were on trial for genocide.
In March 2001, the Gacaca justice system was introduced to promote reconciliation.
The 250,000 judges who preside these courts were elected in October 2001 and the system began to operate in June 2002.
Gacaca is a version of a traditional justice system involving the community that the government of Rwanda has introduced to expedite thousands of genocide trials. The most severe verdict Gacaca courts can give is life imprisonment. Defendants who were aged 14 to 18 at the time of committing their crimes receive sentences half those for adults, while minors aged under 14 are usually set free.
The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that some 89,000 prisoners were still crowded into the jails of Rwanda at the beginning of 2005. Up to 23,000 were released in 2004.
According to the Attorney General’s office, to date, 23 people have been executed after being found guilty of charges relating to the 1994 genocide. The last of these executions was carried out on April 24, 1998, when 22 people including the vice president of the Mouvement Democratique Républicain (MDR), Frodouald Karamira, were publicly executed.
International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) - set up by the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania - handles the cases of a more serious nature in the perpetration of the genocide. The ICTR has no death penalty.
This creates an imbalance and is one of the reasons why Rwanda should abolish the death penalty, human rights groups have said meeting at an inter-regional meeting on peace building in the Great Lakes region held in Tanzania from December 13-15, 2004 said. Rwandan human rights groups appealed to President Paul Kagame to abolish capital punishment to improve the country's image abroad and promote forgiveness and reconciliation at home.
On September 13, 2004, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said he would support abolishing the death penalty for genocide suspects held by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, if the prisoners were to be transferred to Rwandan national jurisdiction. The death penalty has been a source of friction between Rwandan authorities and the Tribunal, which had indicted 81 people since it was set up in 1995. The proposals to move the trials to Rwanda were met with opposition from defence lawyers who said their clients would not receive fair trials.