Bernad Ntuyahaga, 55, was convicted yesterday by a Belgian court which has been trying him. However, the court acquitted him of murdering then Rwandan PM Agathe Uwilingiyimana.
The murders, committed in front of Rwandan army officers, triggered the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers.
Belgium's prime minister told the court that had peacekeepers stayed, thousands of lives could have been saved.
International fallout
Prosecutors said Ntuyahaga took the peacekeepers from the residence of Mrs Uwilingiyimana, who they were trying to protect. He then handed them over to fellow soldiers in a military camp in the capital, Kigali, where they were beaten to death, shot or slain with machetes.
Christine Dupont, the widow of Belgian peacekeeper Christophe Dupont, said before the verdict: "It's a very important day, a day we have been waiting for the last 13 years."
It is not the first time Rwandans have stood trial in Belgium over the Genocide. Two Catholic nuns, a university professor and a businessman were sentenced in 2001 to between 12 and 20 years' jail for aiding the mass murders.
Sentenced to 20 years for killing 10 Belgian peacekeepers
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