Froduald Karamira, the most prominent of those executed yesterday, was a sort of Rwandan "Lord Haw-Haw" whose daily radio broadcasts inflamed Hutus to kill thousands of Tutsis during the 1994 genocide.
Karamira went to his death before a firing squad yesterday wearing the same absurd prisoner's uniform, a pink pyjama-suit, as when I saw him at his trial in Kigali in January last year.
On that occasion, the shaven-headed businessman-turned-politician leaned casually against the witness stand for the duration of the 31/2 hour hearing, his face betraying no emotion as his crimes against humanity were read out.
Karamira (50) earned his name in broadcasting on the notorious Radio Milles Collines, famous for working its listeners up into a frenzy with the catchcry: "The graves are only half-full; help us fill them."
By the end of 100 days of bloodletting, up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been slaughtered.
My neighbour in the courtroom pew described the atmosphere of the time: "The radio was crazy. It was calling for blood to flow. They came in the night to the house of my family. My cousin was killed, also his wife and their children."
Ironically, Karamira was originally a Tutsi from the town of Giterama, but abandoned this identity to "become" a Hutu. He struggled hard to prove his new-found credentials by becoming a prominent extremist, "more Hutu than the Hutus themselves".
After his allies in the genocidal regime were defeated, he used his considerable wealth to flee to India. The new government tracked him down and had him extradited to Rwanda. Extraordinarily, he escaped, while in transit, at Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia, but was recaptured after three days.
Karamira was unrepentant in prison, and a death sentence was inevitable. His guilt was incontestable, and pleas for clemency from the US and other countries, which carry out their own executions, ring a little hollow. Given the appalling conditions for the 130,000 genocidaires in Rwandan jails, Karamira might even have welcomed execution as a release.
Carrying out the executions in public, though, might sate the desire of Tutsi survivors for revenge, but it is certain to perpetuate the cycle of violence in Rwanda.