Pauline Nyiramasuhuko (born 1 April 1946) is a Rwandan politician who was the Minister for Family Welfare and the Advancement of Women.
She was tried for genocide and incitement to rape as part of the "Butare Group" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania.
[5] Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was born in the small farming community of Ndora, in the province of Butare, to a poor Hutu family.
[11][12][13] At night, the residents of Butare watched the firelight from the hills in the west, and could hear gunfire from nearby villages.
[14] In response to the revolt, the interim government of Rwanda sent Pauline Nyiramasuhuko from Kigali, the capital, to intervene in her home town of Butare.
[6] The Hutu paramilitary group Interahamwe, led by Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, Pauline's 24-year-old son, surrounded the stadium.
[16] In another incident, she ordered her men to take cans of gasoline from her car and use them to burn a group of women to death, leaving a surviving rape victim as a witness.
[23] According to prosecutor Holo Makwaia, Nyiramasuhuko had intended to "destroy in whole or in part the Tutsi ethnic group in Butare".
[3] On 24 June 2011, Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty of seven charges including genocide and incitement to rape;[3] she was sentenced to life imprisonment and will not be eligible to apply for parole for 25 years.