Prosecutor Nicolás Perón said there was no evidence to show that Rwamucyo personally carried out summary executions or acts of torture.

But he stated that the 65-year-old man should not “evade his responsibilities” since he can “kill himself with words.”

Prosecutors accused Rwamucyo, born into a Hutu family, of spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda.

They also cited witness statements, who accused him of helping to bury victims in mass graves “in a final effort to destroy evidence of the genocide.”

The prosecution had asked that he be sentenced to 30 years in prison, while representatives of the survivors asked that he be sentenced to life in prison.

Angélique Uwamahoro, who was 13 during the genocide, said she saw Rwamucyo at a roadblock in the town of Butare and heard him encouraging militants to kill Tutsis, according to the Associated Press.

“I wanted to incite them to kill us so that we wouldn’t come out alive,” he said.

But Rwamucyo told the court: “I assure you that I did not order the murder of the survivors nor did I allow them to be killed.”

Their lawyers argued that their participation in burials in mass graves was because they wanted to avoid a “health crisis” that would have occurred if they had not been buried.

They said he was being prosecuted for disagreeing with the current Rwandan government.

Rwamucyo was arrested in Sannois, north of Paris, in 2010 after attending the funeral of a former Rwandan official convicted of war crimes during the genocide.

In December, former doctor Sosthene Munyemana was sentenced to 24 years in prison by a French court for crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. He was accused of organizing torture and murder in the genocide.