Kigali - A Rwandan journalist has been acquitted of genocide charges by a traditional court after serving 11 years in prison, a human rights group said on Tuesday.
"The journalist is currently at home after being acquitted last week in a session of gacacas (traditional courts) of Ruhango in the central part of the country," said Venant Nshimyumurwa, a member of the League for the Defence of Human Rights in the Great Lakes (LDGL).
He referred to 42-year-old Tatiana Mukakibibi, who was charged in 1996 with genocide, planning and participating in genocide and distributing arms during Rwanda's 1994 genocide which killed about 800 000 people.
Mukakibibi was accused of having killed a journalist producing programmes for the country's agriculture ministry at the time, a charge she has denied.
The media-rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF) hailed Mukakibibi's liberation and called the affair closed.
"After 11 years in detention for nothing, we hope this journalist will finally be able to resume a normal life with her daughter, who is now a teenager," the Paris-based press freedom group said.
After the genocide, Mukakibibi worked for a Catholic priest and former editor.
After her arrest in 1996, she was held in a communal cell in "appalling conditions" before being transferred to a prison last year, RSF said. - Sapa-AFP