Fugitive Rwandan police officer charged in killings of over 2,000 during 1994 genocide

• Fulgence Kayishema, a police officer accused of orchestrating the killings of over 2,000 folks at a church through the Rwandan genocide, has been arrested in South Africa after spending 22 years as a fugitive.
• Kayishema assumed a false identification after fleeing justice in 2001, an endeavor that remained profitable till his seize in a multinational fugitive monitoring operation.
• “[Kayishema’s] arrest provides the survivors hope that different fugitives nonetheless at giant might be arrested too,” mentioned Naphtal Ahishakiye, government secretary of Ibuka, a Rwandan genocide survivors’ group.

Some of the wished suspects in Rwanda’s genocide, a police officer suspected of orchestrating the killing of greater than 2,000 folks at a church almost three a long time in the past, has been arrested in South Africa after 22 years on the run, a particular tribunal arrange by the United Nations to search out the perpetrators mentioned Thursday.

The Worldwide Residual Mechanism for Legal Tribunals (IRMCT) mentioned Fulgence Kayishema was arrested Wednesday at a winery in Paarl, a small city in a wine-making area about 30 miles east of Cape City.

Kayishema, who’s believed to be in his early 60s, had assumed a false identification and passed by the identify Donatien Nibashumba, South African police mentioned.

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He was captured in a joint operation by the tribunal’s fugitive monitoring crew and South African authorities, the tribunal mentioned, following an investigation that had tracked him throughout a number of African international locations, together with Mozambique and Eswatini, since his indictment in 2001.

The USA had supplied a $5 million reward for info resulting in Kayishema’s arrest by its Rewards for Justice program.

Greater than 800,000 folks have been killed in Rwanda’s genocide, which passed off over the course of three months in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic group turned on the minority Tutsis, slaughtering them and average Hutus who tried to guard them.

“His arrest provides the survivors hope that different fugitives nonetheless at giant might be arrested too,” mentioned Naphtal Ahishakiye, the manager secretary of the Rwandan genocide survivor group Ibuka. “A genocide crime is simply too grave to go unpunished.”

Kayishema was indicted by the U.N.’s Worldwide Legal Tribunal for Rwanda and charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes in opposition to humanity for killings and different crimes. He had been at giant since 2001, the tribunal mentioned.

Former Rwandan police inspector Fulgence Kayishema has been arrested for his suspected position within the 1994 Rwandan genocide. (Worldwide Residual Mechanism for Legal Tribunals by way of AP)

The tribunal mentioned he’s alleged to have organized the killings of greater than 2,000 ethnic Tutsi refugees — males, girls and youngsters — at a Catholic church on April 15, 1994, through the first days of the genocide.

The indictment alleges Kayishema, who held the rank of police inspector on the time, immediately participated within the planning and execution of the bloodbath by buying petrol to burn down the church with the folks trapped inside. When that failed, Kayishema and others used a bulldozer to knock down the church, burying and killing these inside, which included younger kids but additionally many aged women and men. Kayishema and others then moved the our bodies from the church grounds into mass graves over two days, the indictment alleges.

U.N. Secretary-Normal António Guterres welcomed Kayishema’s apprehension which “sends a robust message that those that are alleged to have dedicated such crimes can not evade justice and can finally be held accountable, much more than 1 / 4 of a century later,” his spokesman mentioned.

The U.N. chief recommended the cooperation between South Africa and the Rwanda tribunal which led to Kayishema’s arrest, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric mentioned. His ideas at present “are in the beginning” with victims of Kayishema’s alleged crimes and their households and he careworn that “ending impunity is important for peace, safety and justice.”

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South African police mentioned Kayishema would seem in a courtroom in Cape City on Friday earlier than seemingly being extradited to Rwanda.

The Worldwide Residual Mechanism for Legal Tribunals was fashioned in 2010 to proceed investigating atrocities and searching down suspects of the Rwandan genocide and people suspected of warfare crimes within the former Yugoslavia throughout its ethnic conflicts within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.

“Fulgence Kayishema was a fugitive for greater than 20 years. His arrest ensures that he’ll lastly face justice for his alleged crimes,” IRMCT chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz mentioned in a press release. “Genocide is probably the most severe crime recognized to humankind. The worldwide neighborhood has dedicated to make sure that its perpetrators might be prosecuted and punished. This arrest is a tangible demonstration that this dedication doesn’t fade and that justice might be completed, regardless of how lengthy it takes.”

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The tribunal mentioned it has now tracked down 5 suspects wished within the Rwandan genocide since 2020. It’s nonetheless looking for three extra fugitives, it mentioned.