In February 2003, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found both Ntakirutimana and his son Doctor Gérard, a physician who had completed graduate work in the United States prior to returning to Rwanda, guilty of genocide committed in Rwanda in 1994.
The Tribunal found it proven beyond reasonable doubt that Ntakirutimana, himself belonging to the Hutu ethnicity, had transported armed attackers to the Mugonero complex, where they killed hundreds of Tutsi refugees. He was convicted on the basis of eyewitness accounts. A number of the convictions were overturned on appeal but the sentence was unchanged.
Ntakirutimana was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
He was released on December 6, 2006 after serving 10 years under arrest or in prison, and died the following month. The book accuses Ntakirutimana of complicity in the deaths of the refugees.
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana died on January 22, 2007, aged 82.
