Rwanda’s National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) has renewed its call on Australian authorities to extradite Genocide fugitives following an investigation by the Guardian Australia and ABC Four Corners, which traced two men accused of having a role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in which over one million lives were lost. ALSO READ: How Australia became den of Genocide fugitives and subversive groups The two men have been identified as Froduald Rukeshangabo and Celestin Munyaburanga with the former living in suburban Brisbane, where he works as a driving instructor, according to the joint investigation by the two media houses. “Munyaburanga has family in the same city – although it is unclear whether he is in the country and understood he might be living under a different name,” the investigative report said. After a trial in absentia in May 2005, a Gacaca court in Busasamana, Nyanza District sentenced Munyaburanga, a former headmaster of a local school, to life imprisonment for playing a role in the killing of at least 20 Tutsi civilians at a roadblock at Hanika in Nyanza area. Survivors contacted by Four Corners testified that during the Genocide, Munyaburanga had a gun and that he gave orders to kill and decided when the victims were be killed and the weapons that would be used. Rwandan authorities sent an arrest warrant for Munyaburanga, now aged 60, to the Australian government, in 2017. At the time, he was believed to be living in Canberra, the country’s capital city. ALSO READ: Where are the 1,100 Genocide fugitives? Meanwhile, Rukeshangabo who is a former school inspector in Kibungo (today’s Ngoma District) was in was in November 2007 convicted in absentia by a Gacaca court. The 68-year-old is accused of participating in attacks that killed at least 10 Tutsi civilians, according to Gacaca archives seen by the Guardian/Four Corners team. Rukeshangabo, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison, has lived in Australia since at least 2009. He became an Australian citizen in 2014. ‘Australia has an international duty’ “We invite the Australian police together with the prosecution to come to Rwanda because it’s where the crime scene is located; it’s where witnesses will be found,” John Bosco Siboyintore, a prosecutor who heads NPPA’s Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit, said in an interview with Four Corners. “This is an issue of international nature; this is genocide,” he said. “We will leave no stone unturned until justice is done.” He said Australia had “an international duty to either prosecute or extradite” Munyaburanga and Rukeshangabo. ALSO READ: Rwandan Genocide fugitive, 64, arrested in The Netherlands Siboyintore said the Rwandan prosecution sent an indictment and arrest warrant for Rukeshangabo to Australian authorities. Four Corners confirmed that Rukeshangabo's indictment was received by the Australian government in January. “When a country is not prosecuting a genocide case, when it has been asked to do so, it should know that it is giving safe haven to other perpetrators. It beats every sensible person’s understanding,” Siboyintore noted, adding that the fugitives “need to face the law.”
