Another top Genocide suspect arrested

PARIS - France has arrested another Rwanda Genocide suspect, the second to be apprehended on her territory in two months. Claver Kamana, who has been on the list of top Genocide suspects, was on Tuesday arrested from France’s eastern town of Annecy, officials have confirmed. Rwandan prosecutors say the arrest came after Rwanda issued an international arrest warrant for him through Interpol. The Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit compiled and sent Kamana’s indictments and arrest warrant in August last year, Prosecution spokesman, Jean Bosco Mutangana, said yesterday. Mutangana coordinates the tracking unit, which is composed of prosecutors and police officers. He said the Government of Rwanda is already preparing a document to request for Kamana’s extradition to Rwanda for trial. On January 7, France arrested another Genocide fugitive, Lt. Col. Marcel Bivugabagabo, who also faces a possible extradition to Kigali. And another Genocide fugitive, Isaac Kamali, also arrested in France last year after he had been deported from the US, is awaiting a court decision on Rwanda’s extradition request. The hearing of the transfer request of Bivugabagabo is also set for March 18 at the Court of Appeal of Toulouse, southern France. It is a good progress and cooperation from the French judiciary. They have arrested two people since the year began which is an indication that the French government is keen on bringing to book Genocide perpetrators, Mutangana said. Kamana, who was on the executive committee of the Mouvement Republicain National pour la Democracie (MRND), the party that masterminded the 1994 Genocide, is accused of having spearheaded killings in the former Runda commune, Gitarama prefecture, now in the Southern Province. He was among key financiers of the infamous Radio Television des Milles Collines (RTLM) – a hate radio, Mutangana said. According to the indictment, Kamana is accused of six counts including Genocide, complicity to commit Genocide and several other crimes such as formation of a criminal gang. He personally transported militiamen to killing sites and chaired various meetings that incited militias to commit Genocide, said Mutangana. Apart from the trio, France is holding in custody three other Rwandan suspects arrested at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania. The three are Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, Laurent Bucyibaruta (the former prefet of Gikongoro prefecture) and Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, a former sous-prefet of Gisagara in the Southern Province. ICTR has since requested France to prosecute Munyeshyaka – who was two years ago sentenced in absentia to life in prison by the Rwandan courts – and Bucyibaruta. As for Ntawukuriryayo, a French court last week sanctioned his transfer to ICTR for trial. Other Western countries holding Genocide suspects include Britain, Finland, Holland, the United States and Canada. Hearings on Rwanda’s request for extradition of four men detained in Britain are set to resume next month. We are expecting more fugitives to be arrested because we have received various rogatory commissions from different countries to investigate the crimes committed by fugitives now resident in their respective countries, said the prosecution spokesman. Mutangana said that the Government of Rwanda is also in talks with several African countries to ensure that Genocide fugitives holed up there are apprehended. We are particularly in touch with Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, he added. He said that the reason African countries have not made many arrests compared to European nations was lack of capacity to track the movements of the wanted fugitives. In Africa, it is not easy to monitor their movements from one country to another; it is easier in Europe because they track fingerprints, he said. No single Genocide fugitive has been arrested in any African country over the past ten years on Rwanda’s request although last week Tanzania arrested Callixte Nzabonimana after ICTR, which itself sits in that country, indicted him. Most of these fugitives are said to be moving freely from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to southern African countries such Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia where they are believed to be conducting businesses. Ends