Germany's Federal Court of Justice said a Rwandan man already sentenced for being an accessory to genocide could face life in prison, after it ruled that he was also guilty of perpetrating genocide, Reuters reported.
Onesphore Rwabukombe, who has lived in Germany since 2002, was a mayor in north Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by dominant Hutu forces in 100 days.
He was jailed by a court in Frankfurt for 14 years, after the ethnic Hutu, was found guilty of overseeing and assisting the murder of at least 450 men, women and children at the Kiziguro church compound in east Rwanda, but not of killing anyone himself.
However Germay's highest court has now ruled that he did actively take part in killings.
Witnesses in the original case described him driving militia men to the site of the massacre in his own pick-up truck and ordering the attackers to "get to work".
"The statements do not only prove the objective offence of being an accessory to genocide but also those of perpetration," said the higher court.
Man sentenced in Germany’s first Rwandan genocide trial (18 February 2014)