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At last, Kamali, one of the most crucial suspects in the Rwanda Genocide is held in US and may be taken to court if his captors hand him over for justice to be done.

Isaac Kamali was arrested on Wednesday by US security in Washington D.C., from Lyon, France, traveling on a French passport.

Reliable sources in France reported that, after being identified as one of fugitives that participated in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, Kamali was intercepted and detained under US custody. They added that, “Kamali was arrested on his way to the US from France and he is still in the hands of the Americans.”

The Foreign Affairs minister Dr Charles Murigande, also confirmed the news saying that “It’s true he was arrested because we (Rwandan government) issued a red notice for his arrest to all governments. He is someone who committed serious Genocide crimes.”

“The next step does not depend on us. For us, we pray that he is extradited to Rwanda but that possibility is complicated by the fact that Kamali holds a French passport. Maybe as we talk now, Paris has intervened to secure the release of their beloved citizen.” alleged the minister when asked what was to happen now that the fugitive was under arrest.

The lack of a signed extradition treaty between US and Rwanda may make the negotiations more complex however Isaac Kamalis crimes may be solved using the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide which is above the other treaties.

“The Convention is clear; it commits all member states to ensure that Genocide perpetrators are brought to book, and in this case, we think it (the Convention) will supercede any other consideration,” Murigande.

He also added that, “Considering the existing excellent relations between Rwanda the US and our close collaboration in judicial matters, we are hopeful that the US government will extradite him to Rwanda to be answerable for his Genocide crimes.”

Rwandan embassy in Washington D.C. had already started engaging the US authorities with regard to extraditing the suspect.

However, contacted for a comment yesterday, the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) of the US, Brian George, said that he was not aware of the arrest. “I haven’t heard any information on that. I will have to confirm first.”

While addressing the UN Security Council in New York, US on Monday, the Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga expressed fears over the current discovery by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) chief prosecutor, Boubakar Jallow, to transfer convicts and cases to the French jurisdiction.

“My Government has serious concerns with this, principally because well-known fugitives continue to live in that country (France) with impunity. We intend to raise this issue with appropriate authorities at the highest level,” the prosecutor general said.

France has always been reluctant to help apprehend the Rwanda Genocide suspects still at large on its country. The fugitives include former First Lady Agathe Habyarimana and Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by Rwandan courts of law.

Rwanda also accuses France for taking part in the Genocide.

“We are appealing to the Council to take urgent measures to ensure that indictees do not evade justice,” said the prosecutor general as he urged the Security Council to combine forces with Rwanda in apprehending fugitives that are spread in numerous UN member states. He also added that the ICTR completion strategy shouldn’t be an exit strategy for the commitments of the international community to ensure that these fugitives are brought to justice, either by the Tribunal before the end of 2008 or in national jurisdictions after 2008.

He said that Rwanda is willing to take up the recent move by the ICTR prosecutor concerning the transfer of suspects to Rwandan jurisdiction, saying that Kigali is set in this regard.

“The Rwanda Government and the (ICTR) Prosecutor have made remarkable progress with respect to referral of cases,” he said with an example of the organic law No.11/2007 that was promulgated to govern all legal matters pertaining to referral of cases to Rwanda.

In recent times, the ICTR prosecutor moved a motion to have the case of one Fulgence Kayishema transferred to Rwanda. Kayishema is still at liberty, but according to sources, Jallow is preparing another motion to transfer three suspects who are in detention at the ICTR detention facility though the identities of those people are still unknown. So we call upon the Security Council to back Rwanda’s bid to have convicted suspects serve their sentences in the country.

“Rwanda believes that the ICTR convicts must serve their sentences in Rwanda where they committed the crimes and where they should be seen serving their sentences,” Martin Ngoga said. In order to try the masterminds of the Rwanda Genocide, the UN Security council established the ICTR, an ad hoc tribunal located in Arusha, Tanzania 1994.

With a budget of millions of dollars, the tribunal has completed only 33 cases with five acquittals in almost 13 years and the court reportedly spent an astounding $31million which is an approximation of Frw17 billion on each of these cases.

By Nakawooya Grace

Netherlands intends to apprehend and prosecute Genocide fugitives that have sought asylum in the country, a visiting Dutch minister has said. The country’s Minister for Development Cooperation, Bert Koenders, said yesterday that the European nation has an obligation to arrest and try Genocide suspects, just like any other country.

He was addressing a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

“There is no reason why we should not bring these fugitives to book; everybody has to be prosecuted with fair justice,” said Koenders.

He said that there was also a possibility of extraditing the fugitives to Rwanda.

The Dutch government has previously extradited a Genocide suspect, Ephraim Setako, a former army officer, to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania.

Netherlands also arrested another Genocide suspect Joseph Mbambara and is in the process of trying him itself. Several other Genocide suspects are believed to be living in Netherlands.

Meanwhile, minister Koenders expressed optimism that the recent election of Nicholas Sarkozy as new French President will help mend the strained relations between Rwanda and France.

“I have hope in Nicholas Sarkozy’s government; I am sure this issue will be solved in a democratic way,” he said but refrained from giving his position on the Rwanda-France relations.

He also promised his government’s support to Rwanda’s media.

“We intend to support the media in Rwanda in terms of improving journalistic ethics and capacity,” he said.

During his visit, Koenders among other things visited the offices of Rwanda Independent Media Group (RIMEG), which publishes Umuseso, The Newsline and Champion newspapers.

27 May 2007
Posted to the web 28 May 2007
E. Musoni and G. Agaba
Kigali

A onetime Deputy Chief of Operations of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) yesterday testified that French soldiers trained Interahamwe militias preceding the 1994 Genocide.

13 years after the genocide, in which a million Tutsis and conservative Hutus were killed, Rtd. Lt. Col. Walter Ballis, testified that French troops intensively skilled civil groups of radical Hutus in a valley near Kigali International Airport.

“We were tipped that the trainings were being conducted in an exclusive ground near the airport but at the time Gen. Romeo Dallaire (the UNAMIR force Commander) sent us for reconnaissance, the French had learnt of the mission and relocated the training wing,” he told the seven-man commission hearing the role of France in the 1994 Genocide.

He alleged that the participation of the French in the masterminding of the Genocide dated backwards when they refused to take to their motherland after the Operation Noroit between 1991 and 1993. After the signing of the Arusha Peace Accord, the French troops were supposed to depart Rwandan land by December 1993 because their consent had expired.

“But the French soldiers remained around disguising in simple apparel. I came across one of the soldiers whom I personally knew at Meridien Hotel and I was shocked,” Ballis said. He said that by the fact that the soldier was not open to him supposed that there was a mission in Kigali at the moment their sanction was over and done, it gave a clear-cut image that they were in the nation to help the radical regime in preparing the Rwanda Genocide.

The operations launched by the French included; Noroit (1991-93) that led warring RPF and the opinion MRND regime into the Arusha peace accord, Amaryllis (evacuation of international experts) at the start of the Genocide on April 8, 1994 and lastly the notorious Operation Turquoise that was established at the beginning of the human slaughter in which French troops purportedly aided the Interahamwe.

The retired Colonel told the committee at Prime Holdings Conference Centre in Kimihurura, a Kigali suburbia that in all these operations the French, in some manner, aided the extremists and abandoned the masses in the conception of the Genocide and subsequently during the Genocide in Rwanda.

Find more information about Rwanda Genocide at Rwanda Travel Directory

Posted by Grace Nakawooya