A Dutch court has sentenced a Rwandan man to life in prison for his role in the murder of thousands during the 1994 genocide in the Central African country.

The Hague district court found Eugene N guilty of war crimes and genocide on Friday, and issued the sentence.

Named only as Eugene N, the suspect helped ransack and burn homes in two mostly Tutsi communities, before taking part in a mob that descended on roughly 3,000 Tutsis sheltering in a stadium in Mbazi in April of 1994.

He directed the Hutu attackers to let no one escape and threw a grenade into the crowd, the court said. Survivors of the initial attack were later beaten and hacked to death.

Eugene N, variously reported to be 66 or 67 years old, fled the Netherlands in 1998 and later became a Dutch citizen. Rwanda sought his extradition in 2014, but the Netherlands’ law shields nationals from being handed over.

Prosecutors opened their case in 2020, questioning more than 30 witnesses before arresting him in 2024