Rwandan Court Sentences 10 to DeathSaturday

May 26 KIGALI, Rwanda  - A Rwandan court sentenced 10 people to death and 23 others to life imprisonment for playing leading roles in the 1994 genocide, state-run radio reported Saturday.The court found the suspects guilty of so-called ``class A'' crimes - which include organizing militias, leading killings and rape - during the slaying of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus, Radio Rwanda reported.More than 500,000 people were killed in 100 days of killing organized by the former Hutu government. Tutsi-led rebels stopped the genocide in July 1994 when they seized control of the country.Wellars Banzi, a member of parliament under the former Hutu extremist government, was among those sentenced to death.The court in Gisenyi, 55 miles northwest of the capital Kigali, said articles he wrote for the Kangura newspaper incited the killing of minority Tutsi civilians.Saturday's convictions were the latest in a series of trials for 125,000 genocide suspects under way in Rwanda since 1996.More than 2,000 have been tried so far on lesser charges, and more than 300 have been sentenced to death for ``class A'' crimes.The first 22 people to receive the death penalty were publicly executed on April 24, 1998. No death sentences have been carried out since, though the government has not ruled them out.Rwandan courts have been holding mass trials to relieve overcrowded prisons, where many of the suspects have been held without charges. Many were arrested in confusing circumstances and on shaky evidence in the early days following the end of the genocide.The United Nations (news - web sites)' International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania, is holding its own trial of the top genocide leaders - the others defendants are being tried in Rwanda.The maximum penalty the U.N. tribunal can impose is life in prison.