Paris, Shawwal 01, 1437, July 06, 2016, SPA -- Two former mayors in Rwanda were sentenced Wednesday to life in jail by a French court for committing a massacre in a church during the Rwandan genocide more than two decades ago, according to dpa. The court in Paris found Tito Barahira, 65, and Octavien Ngenzi, 58, guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Tutsi ethnic minority, French news agency AFP reported. The defendants denied the charges, which centred around a mass killing carried out in a church in Kabarondo eastern Rwanda. An estimated 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were slaughtered by Hutu militias during the course of a 100-day genocide in 1994. The bloodbath ended when Tutsi rebels lead by Paul Kagame, now Rwanda's president, seized control. The two ex-mayors were tried in France because they were apprehended there. In 2014, a French court convicted Rwandan ex-intelligence chief Pascal Simbikangwa of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Nearly 30 cases related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda are pending in French courts, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. --SPA 23:34 LOCAL TIME 20:34 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w