Two deported Rwandans to face genocide charges
TWO Rwandans – one arrested in France and the other deported from the US – are expected to face charges related to the 1994 genocide in which over a million people were killed, many more injured and displaced
Beatrice Munyenyezi, who was deported by the United States after serving a prison term for lying on her naturalisation application, faces seven charges related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, authorities in Kigali said.
Priest Marcel Hitayezu, who has been living in France, was arrested this week at his home in Montlieu-la-Garde on charges related to crimes against Humanity and Genocide, according to the French prosecutor’s office.
Thierry Murangira, spokesman for the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation, said Munyenyezi will be charged for crimes ranging from murder to complicity in rape, which occurred as she was manning a road block in the southern city of Butare.
He was speaking on state television on Friday evening after Munyenyezi, who had secured US citizenship in New Hampshire in 2003, was flown into Kigali, accompanied by U.S. federal agents.
Munyenyezi denied accusations of involvement in the genocide during her trial in the United States. She did not speak to waiting journalists as Rwandan police took her into custody when she arrived.
The road block where she is accused of committing the crimes was situated outside a hotel in Butare that was owned by her in-laws.
Munyenyezi’s mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, and her husband Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, were convicted and sentenced by the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha for their roles in the genocide.
Munyenyezi was stripped of her U.S. citizenship and jailed for 10 years in 2013, after she was found guilty by a court of misrepresenting material facts when she secured the naturalisation. – Thomson Reuters Foundation.
