Ex-Official Acquitted of Genocide Charges

A Rwandan court acquitted a former official charged in the 1994 genocide of more than 800,000 people, state-run Radio Rwanda reported. The criminal court in Kibuye, west of Kigali, the capital, cleared former Deputy Gov. Ignace Banyaga of charges that he helped kill thousands of minority Tutsis seeking shelter at a local church and a stadium in April 1994. The killings, ordered by the former Hutu extremist government, ended when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front overthrew the Hutu fighters in July 1994. The ruling surprised many genocide survivors, Radio Rwanda said. The prosecution had requested the death penalty for Banyaga.