Genocide suspect transferred to Arusha

ARUSHA-The recently arrested Genocide suspect and former head of interahamwe militia in the Western Province, Bernard Munyagishari, has been transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. Munyangishari was transferred, on Tuesday, from Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where he was arrested. He is being held in the tribunal’s Detention Facility. The suspect was arrested late last month in an operation mounted by DRC armed forces, in collaboration with the ICTR Office of the Prosecutor’s Tracking Unit in Kachanga, North Kivu. “He is scheduled to make his initial appearance in accordance with Rule 62 of the Tribunal Rules during which he will answer to charges of Genocide and crimes against humanity, including rape, preferred against him,” reads an ICTR statement. The accused is alleged to have recruited, trained and led Interahamwe militiamen in mass killings and raping Tutsi women in Gisenyi and beyond, between April and July 1994. ICTR Registrar, Adama Dieng, hailed the DRC authorities for their cooperation in executing the warrant of arrest and processing the transfer of the accused to Arusha to face prosecution. Born in 1959 in the then Rubavu Commune in the Western Province, Munyagishari was arrested pursuant to an international arrest warrant issued by the tribunal in 2005. He has featured on the US Rewards for Justice Programme as a fugitive from international justice with a bounty of up to $ 500,000 on his head. Ends

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Genocide suspect transferred to Arusha