A court in France has found French-Cameroonian author Charles Onana guilty of downplaying the Rwandan genocide.
The 60-year-old writer was fined €8,400 ($8,900; £7,000) and Damien Serieyx, his publishing director from Éditions du Toucan, was ordered to pay €5,000. They are also required to pay €11,000 in compensation to human rights organizations that that filed the suit.
The Paris court ruled that Onana's writings violated France's laws prohibiting genocide denial and incitement to hatred.
In just 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists.
In his book Rwanda, the Truth About Operation Turquoise—published in 2019—Onana described the idea that the Hutu government had planned a genocide in Rwanda as "one of the biggest scams" of the last century.
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