Editor,

RE: "Genocide fugitive arrested in Kigali living ‘a new life’” (The New Times, May 11).

Genocide perpetrators really have a nerve if they believe they can flit in and out of Rwanda, where they committed monstrous crimes before their flight, and evade capture forever. I say this because Hussein Minani’s case is very similar to that of Victoire Ingabire’s aide, Joseph Ntawangundi, who came to Rwanda with his mistress, apparently in the false belief no one would connect him to his previous identity as the principal of EAVE-Gitwe (an agro-veterinary college), when he led rampaging Interahamwe killers in their genocidal killings in the area around the college.

Readers of The New Times will remember how at the time of his arrest Ntawangundi and his mistress went on a warpath, brazenly insisting he was not the Ntawangundi already convicted by Gacaca courts in absentia, denying at first that the woman whom he had deserted with their baby girl and who appeared to confirm his identity was ever his wife until those denials became threadbare in the face of accumulating evidence about his true identity, and accusing the Government allegedly of using Gacaca courts as a weapon against its political opponents.

I wonder how many Minanis and Ntawangundis are lying low amongst us, perpetually fearful of that fateful day when the long hand of the law settles around their collar and they are hauled off to jail to await their day in court.

In my view, the permanent knot in their stomachs from the fear of getting nabbed is a much more preferable punishment than many others I can contemplate. Let them forever continuously look behind their backs and start with every footfall behind their houses in their assumed false identities.

Mwene Kalinda