Bagosora was sent to Mali along with three other prisoners.

Seven other genocide suspects convicted by the court have been sent to Benin, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said in a statement.

Bagosora, ruled to have been de facto army chief in the first days of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, was initially sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2008 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In December 2011 the appeals court reduced his sentence to 35 years.

The lower court had ruled he had ordered the crimes -- mass killings, rapes and political assassinations -- committed by his subordinates.

However, the appeals judges found rather that he had simply failed to prevent his men from committing crimes, and failed to punish them for it.

All ICTR detainees who have completed their appeals procedure must be transferred to another country, under the terms of an agreement between the UN and Tanzania, which hosts the tribunal.