Bernard Ntuyahaga, a former Rwandan army officer, was handed a 20 year sentence in a Belgium court for his involvement in the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers in 1994. He is also alleged to have been involved in the massacre of an unknown number of of Rwandan citizens. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had dropped the murder and genocide charges against Ntuyhaga in 1999. He voluntarily surrendered to Belgian authorities in 2004, after officials there had embarked on a lengthy extradition proceeding. The murder of the Belgian peacekeepers led to U.N. withdraw from Rwanda, which opened the way for the beginnings of the genocide there, in which over 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered.