Ferdinand Nahimana Ferdinand Nahimana ( born 15 June 1950 in Gatonde commune ) is a Rwandan historian who was convicted of participating in the Rwandan Genocide . Nahimana was co - founder of the radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines ( RTLM ) , which during the genocide broadcast information and propaganda that helped coordinate the killings and fuel the hatred against Tutsi and moderate Hutu victims . Ferdinand Nahimana holds a Doctorate in History from the University Paris Diderot . Between 1979 and 2007 he wrote many books , articles , about Rwandan History . In 1993 Nahimana helped create the RTLM radio station . In April 1994 , as the violence erupted in Rwanda after President Juvénal Habyarimana ' s death in a plane crash , the French embassy took Ferdinand Nahimana in , thereby helping him escape to Burundi . He was later arrested in Cameroon on 27 March 1996 . Trial and sentence . Nahimana , founder of the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille collines ( RTLM ) was convicted for his responsibility as a senior ranking official on the radio starting 6 April 1994 , date on which he no longer exerted any role , according to his French lawyer Jean - Marie Biju - Duval . " There is an extraordinary paradox " , estimated the lawyer in an interview with the Hirondelle agency . This conviction , according to him , " marks the end of a certain right of evidence before international justice " . " There was the idea that there was a right of evidence inherited from Common law ( legal system mainly used before international courts ) the protection barriers have been removed one after another " , said Biju Duval , main counsel of Nahimana since 1996 . The Rwandan historian was convicted for not having done anything in order to stop the inflammatory shows of the RTLM after 6 April 1994 , as he had , according to the judgment , an authority on the personnel of the radio station . According to the lawyer , " Nahimana was convicted on the weakest point of the prosecutor ' s thesis . The hierarchical responsibility is not the power of influence " , he reminded . According to him , " it must be established within the framework of a chain of command , it must fall under a hierarchy with an effective control " . In addition to Nahimana , two other appellants were convicted by the appeals chamber , which delivered its judgment Wednesday . Jean Bosco Barayagwiza saw his sentenced reduced from 35 to 32 years and the sentence of Hassan Ngeze went from life in prison to 35 years In past , Nahimana was prosecuted at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , together with two others involved with the RTLM : Hassan Ngeze and Jean Bosco Barayagwiza . Nahimana claimed that he was innocent and denied having editorial control of the RTLM broadcasts during the killings : " " I couldn ' t recognise the RTLM of those days from the one that existed before 6 April . It had been appropriated by radicals , what are now called extremists , whose way of seeing and doing things I did not share " " . The " hate media trials " received attention since it was the first time since the Nuremberg trials that hate speech had been prosecuted as a war crime . On December 3 , 2003 , Ferdinand Nahimana was sentenced to life imprisonment , guilty of genocide , conspiracy to commit genocide , incitement , directly and publicly , to commit genocide , complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity . Hassan Ngeze also got a life sentence , and Jean Bosco Barayagwiza was sentenced to 35 years in prison . Despite the sentences ' possible impact on freedom of the press , Reporters Without Borders welcomed the outcome of the trial . Ferdinand Nahimana appealed his sentence , and the trial before the Appeals Chamber was opened on 16 January 2007 . The Appeals Chamber reversed some of his convictions and reduced his sentence from life imprisonment to 30 years ' imprisonment . In December 2008 , he has been transferred from Arusha ( Tanzania ) to Mali ( in West Africa ) ( see article ) Falsely accused ? A 2010 book written by Hervé Deguine , journalist , historian and ex research director for Reporter without borders , points out that the proofs and motives invoked in Nahimana ' s trial were based on very little evidence except that he founded and was one of the owners of the radio station , exposing arguments and circumstantial evidence against his conviction . He concludes his book by affirming that on the basis of judicial proofs , Nahimana should be released .