KOULIKORO (Mali): Stretching their legs in a sunkissed gravel prison courtyard in Mali, two of the architects of Rwanda's genocide serve out their sentences far from home, 20 years after leading the slaughter.

Theoneste Bagosora, bespectacled and sporting a gleaming pair of tennis shoes, cuts a far more serene figure than he did as the army chief described as “the Heinrich Himmler of Rwanda” who ordered an “apocalypse” which left 800,000 dead.His cellmate Jean Kambanda's face is hidden by an enormous beard but he is still recognisable as the prime minister who incited one of the most extensive and brutal mobilisations of a population against its fellow countrymen ever seen.

More than a dozen Rwandan “genocidaires” are housed in their own unit of the prison in Koulikoro, a garrison town on the banks of the River Niger 57 kilometres (35 miles) downstream from Bamako. Serving long or whole-life terms, most are old men and will never leave.—AFP