Former university lecturer Leon Mugesera was on Friday sentenced to life in prison for genocide crimes in Rwanda.

Mugesera’s highly publicised trial has been ongoing in Rwanda for four years since his deportation from Canada in January 2012, where he had fled with his family.

Presiding Judge at the High Court Antione Muhima pronounced Mugesera guilty of inciting masses to commit genocide against the Tutsi, particularly in a speech he made in 1992 calling for “cockroaches” to be slaughtered and dumped in a river.

“The court finds Leon Mugesera guilty of inciting masses to commit genocide against their fellow countrymen. He has been sentenced to life in prison. He is free to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court in 30 days,” Judge Muhima said.

At the time of making the infamous speech in 1992, Mugesera was a lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, as well as the Northern Province deputy president of president Juvénal Habyarimana’s party MRND.

He was also found guilty of persecuting Tutsis and inciting hatred.

He was however found not guilty on two counts: Planning the genocide and conspiring to commit genocide.

Genocide scholar Philip Gourevitch has previously claimed that Mugesera’s speech gave “necessary momentum to the anti-Tutsi hysteria that led to the genocide,” considering that he was among the first politicians to publicly incite the masses to carry out the killings.

The court heard that in his speech, Mugesera told over 1,000 MRND party members that “we must get rid of the cockroaches and dump them in the River Nyabarongo.”

Mugesera has always claimed that his speech was changed in context. He has vowed to appeal the sentence in the Supreme Court.