He was found guilty of crimes against humanity for sending his troops to rape, beat up and loot from the population of Fizi on New Year’s Day.
Forty-nine women came to testify in the court in in Baraka. Read more after the jump
The BBC’s Thomas Hubert says it is the first conviction of a commanding officer for rape in eastern DR Congo.
Humanitarian agencies regularly cite government troops as the largest single group of perpetrators of widespread sexual violence in the Kivu region, says our reporter, who is in the town of Baraka, not far from Fizi.
Anger
Sitting in a mobile open air court in Baraka, the military judges also sentenced three officers serving under Lt Col Mutware to 20 years and five soldiers to between 10 and 15 years.
Our reporter says some of the estimated 2,000 people who attended the verdict proceedings, reacted angrily to the sentences.
This woman is one of the 49 rape victims who gave evidence
Crowds surrounded the vehicles which took away the soldiers and began shouting.
“The people are not happy with this judgement; the people were expecting the death sentence,” one man in the crowd told the BBC.
