›Rwanda Justice 4 Genocide

A brief history of the case against five Rwandan genocide suspects living in the UK

It must be clear that these are charges of the most serious kind. It is highly desirable that trial in such cases should take place in the country concerned. Anyone against whom there is apparently credible evidence of involvement in genocide should face trial and, subject to the requirements of law any such trials should place take place in Rwanda. It is highly undesirable that Britain should become a haven for genocidaire fleeing trial or seeking impunity.

UK High Court, press summary of judgement, 28 July 2017

Genocide and war crimes. Perhaps the two most serious crimes known to humanity. They involve the murder of hundreds/thousands of women, men and children – and the lifelong impact on tens of thousands of dependents and family members who survive. It may be assumed, even taken for granted, that a country which prides itself on a very long history of judicial excellence would be swiftly moved into action when it comes to dealing with individuals suspected of such terrible crimes. It could be also assumed that these most serious of crimes would get the quickest, most rigorous, most serious attention when it comes to determining the guilt or innocence of those suspected of carrying them out.

So how to understand when the exact opposite is true? When the state decides to invert this natural-seeming assumption. So now the most serious of crimes is treated to the slowest, most relaxed mandate, to a point of total inaction against those accused.

It is true that genocide is highly complex, and investigations into the crime are similarly difficult, especially when the country where the crime took place is thousands of miles away in Central Africa. But then one would think a state that is mindful it does not wish to become a haven for such perpetrators seeking impunity from their crimes, would put in place sufficient financial and human resources to carry out these investigations, to prosecute cases in court, and to prioritise court time to do so.

As the UK High Court justices noted in 2017, with more than a degree of typical British understatement: ‘it is ‘highly undesirablethat Britain should become a haven for genocidaire fleeing trial or seeking impunity.’

‘Highly undesirable’. Strong language indeed from High Court Justices Irwin and Foskett. After all, who wants to live next door to mass murderers simply because the state cannot summon the will and resources to put them on trial to prove their guilt or innocence. Justices Irwin and Foskett certainly do not – and they assume, rightly, that others in the UK do not either.

Case History

The five accused men – Celestin Mutabaruka, Celestin Ugirashebuja, Charles Munyaneza, Vincent Bajinya/Brown and Emmanuel Nteziryayo – all chose to flee Rwanda with their families after the genocidal interim regime was toppled from power in July 1994. In the coming few years each decided to move to the UK to start new lives. All had been living very comfortable lives in Rwanda under the authoritarian regime of Juvenal Habyarimana, whose death in a plane crash on 6 April 1994 was to mark the start of the planned and organised genocide against the Tutsi minority, as well as Hutu opponents of the regime which had been been carrying out state organised massacres of thousands of Tutsi since October 1990.

In Rwanda in 1994, a country then rated near the bottom of every global index for education, health, infant mortality, education and freedom of expression, the five men each commanded very good jobs. These were not ordinary peasants who made up more than 90% of the poverty-stricken population. They were near the top of society in terms of education, money and power. Three were mayors, one a doctor and one in charge of a State forestry commission.

Juvenal Habyarimana: seized power in a bloody coup in 1973

Under Habyarimana’s regime from 1973, when the army general seized power in a coup, murdering the former president and hundreds of his political and military supporters, decent employment was almost totally reliant on the ethnic and geographical background of the applicant. Access to secondary education, university and foreign travel/educational courses was reserved for those Hutu with links to individuals at the heart of the regime – the Akazu or ‘Little House’. This mafia-like network, surrounding the family of Habyarimana’s wife Agathe, channelled its corrupt power down through every stratum of society. No section of the state was untouched – indeed the Akazu in essence ran a parallel state alongside the ‘official’ one. Employment in medicine, in business or the army, banking services or conservation, administration or the media required Akazu’s ‘blessing’ – which of course came at a cost in terms of money or support for its power network. Even senior positions in the church – Roman Catholic and protestant – were at the behest of Akazu’s ‘benefaction’. The archbishops of Roman Catholic, Anglican and Evangelical churches were all paid up members of the network – and all would be complicit in the genocide against the Tutsi.

An opposition journal cartoon in 1993 shows Habyarimana and the Akazu or ‘Little House’ of his wife Agathe (sat third left), close family and top members of the network. They meet surrounded by the skulls of Tutsis – with the President noting ‘I have done all I can!!!’

Each of the five men were in state employment pre-1994. Vincent Bajinya was born within a few kilometres of the president and his wife Agathe in the Bushiru region of north west Rwanda. It was from Bushiru that Akazu recruited its most loyal and trusted men. Celestin Mutabaruka was born in the neighbouring prefecture of Kibuye, and like Bajinya, had a very good education – a sign of regime support and trust. Under 1% of Rwandans – carefully selected by the authorities – were able to attend university inside the country; so the fact that Bajinya (Belgium), Mutabaruka (Kenya) and Charles Munyaneza (Uganda) were chosen to benefit from sponsorship to travel abroad for further education, marked them out as being seen as individuals of very high worth to the regime and worthy of patronage by the network around the president who were in effect running the country.

Bajinya, who later worked as a doctor and with the state family planning/population agency ONAPO, and Mutabaruka, who ran a state forest management company, enjoyed very significant and desirable regime backing, as well as good salaries in a country where the vast majority would earn less than one dollar a day.

The other three men, Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo and Celestin Ugirashebuja are notable for holding very important positions as bourgmeisters (mayors) of local communes (administrative districts) within their larger ‘county’ or prefecture. There were 143 mayors in 10 prefectures. In 1974 Habyarimana decided they were to be appointed directly by him, not by the local community, and for an indefinite term of office. Bourgmeisters played a vital role in assuring state control over the lives of every Rwandan; they enforced local laws and regulations, collected taxes, ensured ‘security’ and law and order, and were able to distribute ‘slush funds’ to help nurture their own loyalists within their communes. Being able to appoint the local police and to imprison individuals in the communal lockup gave the mayor near presidential powers in the neighbourhood. With Rwanda being a predominantly rural country where travel was restricted to the occasional trip to market a few kilometres away, for most peasants living in subsistence farming homesteads the authority of the bourgmeister was the only real power they ever experienced. Their authority, in a country where authority was rarely questioned, was wide-ranging, comprehensive and unchallenged.

Unsurprisingly, all Mayors tended to be Hutu, and before the start of ‘multi party’ politics in 1991, all were members of MRND – the single state party of Habyarimana. Charles Munyaneza, formerly a teacher, was appointed bourgmeister in November 1991, just as multi-party politics began, and he remained loyal to the presidential MRND party. He was appointed to run his birth commune of Kinyamakara, in the central-south rural prefecture of Gikongoro. A few kilometres away Emmanuel Nteziryayo, also a teacher, had been made bourgmeister of his birth commune of Mudasomwa a few months earlier in June 1991. However, in keeping with the region, Nteziryayo had thrown his allegiance behind the newly reformed MDR party, a party particularly strong in the centre and south of the country where it had been the dominant force under Habyarimana’s predecessor President Gregoire Kayibanda until his murder.

Perhaps the most interesting story of the three mayors is that of Celestin Ugirashebuja. At the very early age of 25, with little or nothing to recommend him in terms of educational or employment achievements, he found himself made a Bourgmeister by Habyarimana in 1978 – only 5 years after the coup that brought the President to power. Habyarimana, from the north west, was attempting to gain support and loyalty in the centre and south of the country, where former President Kayibanda had had his heartlands. Why Ugirashebuja was plucked from obscurity for this key post is not clear – though rumours alleged personal connections between his wife-to-be and Habyarimana. After 14 years of running of the commune, Ugirashebuja suddenly switched political allegiance at the end of 1992 to the PSD party – believed to be due to threats by the youth militia group of that party against him. Whether his allegiance to MRND and Habyarimana, who had given him power, a healthy salary and a hugely important administrative position, ever really changed however is not known.

Interahamwe militia inside the refugee camps in Zaire (DRC) in December 1994 – training for a invasion to finish the ‘work’ of the genocide – to make Rwanda ‘Tutsi-free’.

Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down as it came in to land in Kigali on 6 April 1994, triggering the planned genocide against the Tutsi minority and Hutu moderates. More than one million were brutally murdered by regime forces. At the same time, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), made up of mainly Tutsi refugees, relaunched their attack on the genocidal regime. By early July 1994 its army and militia faced certain defeat in their battle with resurgent RPF forces and they fled across the border into Zaire, (now DRC), Tanzania and Burundi. In Zaire the genocidal forces were welcomed by Habyarimana’s good friend President Mobutu, and the defeated army/militia were allowed to set up military camps alongside and inside the vast borderland refugee camps that housed hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees. Those former regime officials with money, influence and standing quickly decided to move on from living in camps where disease, internal fighting and poverty were rife. Akazu figures such as Agathe, Z, Bizimungu, Simbikangwa and Felicien Kabuga set up new lives in expensive housing estates in Nairobi and Mombassa, while others such as Pasteur Musabe and Col. Theoneste Bagosora travelled to Yaounde in Cameroon.

Each of the five UK accused genocidaire fled first to Zaire and then swiftly moved on to a more pleasant, safe new life in neighbouring African countries. Bajinya and Ugirashebuja went on to Kenya, where Mutabaruka also ended up after a stay in his wife’s home country of Tanzania. Munyaneza and Nteziryayo were less inclined to wait around in a neighbouring country. Munyaneza moved to Malawi, then Mozambique and finally South Africa, where he travelled from Durban to Jo’burg. Nteziryayo moved on from Zaire to Zambia. By the late 1990s four of the five men and their families had already made their way to the UK seeking a new life. Staying in Rwanda where a new RPF-led government was now in control and arrests of those held responsible for the genocide were underway, was clearly not an option they wished to countenance.

Ugirashebuja arrived first in the UK in 1997 and swiftly obtained funding to start an IT course in Colchester. One year later Mutabaruka came to the UK, settling first in Oxfordshire before later moving to Kent. Munyaneza arrived in 1999, claiming asylum under the false name ‘Charles Munyenza’. Bajinya, who sent his wife and two children ahead of him in 1998, arrived in the UK for his ‘family reunion’ in 2000, shortly after his name appeared on an International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) list of genocide suspects. The last of the five to arrive was Nteziryayo who presented himself and his wife and five children in the UK in 2003, using a false name of ‘Emmanuel Nidikumana’ from Burundi to claim asylum. In 2004 Bajinya changed his name to Brown.

For the next several years the five men lived untroubled lives, with no questions from UK authorities about their asylum claims, backgrounds or ‘red flags’ about their former histories in Rwanda, which either UK authorities did not know about or deemed to be of no bar to their status in the UK. Nteziryayo lived on benefits with his family at a housing association property in Benchill, Wythenshawe, south Manchester. Mutabaruka had been able to get a very generous grant to study, along with wife Rose, at Wye College in Kent. Bajinya/Brown, based in Islington, London volunteered for a refugee charity called ‘Praxis’ while Munyaneza was joined by his wife and two children when he received a work permit and indefinite leave to remain in 2002. Ugirashebuja had moved on from Colchester to enjoy life by the Essex Coast in the very pleasant seaside town of Walton-on-the-Naze, attending the local church and volunteering at a nursing home.

All changed in 2006. Four of the five men found their quiet UK retirement worlds shattered after a number of media reports about their past put pressure on UK authorities to take action. The BBC (Bajinya/Brown and Nteziryayo), Sunday Times (Munyaneza) and Independent (Ugirashebuja) uncovered allegations by survivors and witnesses who accused them of complicity in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. All four protested their innocence.

In December 2006, the four were arrested by police and taken into custody where they remained while the first extradition case was brought against them as Rwandan authorities sought to have them sent back to Kigali to stand trial. The case was heard at Westminster Magistrates Court before District Judge Anthony Evans and finally began on 23 September 2007.

The charges were the same against all four men: genocide; conspiracy to commit genocide; complicity in genocide; crimes against humanity; premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder; formation, membership, leadership and participation in an association of a criminal gang, whose purpose and existence is to do harm to people all their property; inciting, adding or abetting public disorder; participation in acts of devastation, massacres and looting.

Paul Rusesabagina:  his ‘expert’ defence evidence at the extradition hearing was dismissed as ‘worthless’

One notable ‘expert’ the defence called to testify in favour of the extradition case being denied was Paul Rusesabagina, the self-proclaimed ‘hero’ of the film Hotel Rwanda. In his judgement, Judge Nigel Evans noted Rusesabagina’s claims that ‘human rights agencies support the RPF; that the roadblocks were manned by RPF and that there was no systematic government-led genocide are so contrary to all evidence and facts placed before this court as to be worthless… I have spent a great deal of time looking at this evidence… the evidence was not that of an independent expert, but rather that of a man with a background strongly aligned to the extremist Hutu faction, and as such cannot be considered as independent and reasoned.’ In dismissing Rusesabagina’s evidence as worthless, he also noted that the hotel manager ‘was well acquainted with leading members of the MRND and government ministers and also with a number of Dr Bajinya’s witnesses. On his own evidence he was able to call on senior genocidaires for favours.

In his judgement on 6 June 2008, Judge Evans gave the green light for the extradition to proceed. The case was passed to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for her final decision, which resulted in her approval. However, the extradition was put on hold while lawyers for the four men launched an appeal in December 2007. In its judgement 16 months later on 8 April 2009, Justices Law and Sullivan, sitting at the High Court, concluded that were the four men returned to face trial in Rwanda, there was a risk they would ‘suffer a flagrant denial of justice.’ They were immediately released from custody.

Bajinya/Brown: appeared on BBC Newsnight with his lawyer to deny all charges of genocide.

Shortly afterwards, Bajinya/Brown appeared on BBC Newsnight,  sitting rather uncomfortably alongside his lawyer Frank Brazell, to deny all the charges against him and protest his innocence. He was questioned by journalist Emily Maitlis about changes to the law proposed by Justice Minister Jack Straw that were shortly to take place to close a loophole whereby him and his co-defendants could not, at present be prosecuted for genocide in UK courts  because the alleged crimes took place before 2001.

The UK government of Gordon Brown was certainly under pressure after the lengthy extradition case had failed, not least because it showed up two glaring issues with UK law regarding genocide and war criminal suspects living in the UK: what happened when they could not be extradited because they came from countries that the UK legal system did not accept could provide a fair trial; and what happened to those already in the system whose alleged crimes took place before 2001 and so were currently immune from prosecution. It also focused attention on the inadequacy of the asylum process. Before 2004 the screening process for war criminals and genocidaire that was clearly unfit for purpose. The UK was legally unable before 2009 to put on trial those whose crimes had taken place pre-2001. This was not an issue if the UK government chose not concern itself with stopping such individuals settling in the country, or prosecuting them. This had been the default option until 2009 when the Rwandan case suddenly focused the media and Human Rights groups, and as a result the government on this deeply troubling state of affairs.

In an angry debate on 30 June 2009 in the House of Lords,  Lord Hamilton asked Lord Brett, acting for the government, ‘how many suspected war criminals and persons convicted of genocide are living in the United Kingdom; and against how many of those action has been taken?’ In response, Lord Brett noted 2,869 cases had been considered between 2004-2008, with 30 referred to the Met Police, but remarkably there were no known statistics for before 2004 when screening, it seemed, was less than adequate, so there were no accurate figures available at all. This was the period when Bajinya/Brown and the other Rwandan accused had arrived in the UK.

Lord Anderson of Swansea noted that while Lord Brett ‘mentioned the problem of those who are known to be war criminals, but what about those who come in clandestinely or when we do not know their background of potential war crimes? How does he respond to the dilemma that most of those accused of war crimes by definition come from countries where we have doubts about their legal system? Is there not a danger that this judgment [of the 4 Rwandan suspects] will give a signal to those guilty or suspected of war crimes that they have only to come to this country, clandestinely or otherwise, to find safe haven?’

A campaign by Holocaust education organisation the Aegis Trust added to the pressure for immediate reform. The Coroners and Justice Act, passed in late 2009, finally closed the loophole in the law allowing for the crime of genocide committed between 1991 and 2001 to be heard in UK courts.

2009 – UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw: ‘Whilst the UK alone cannot be the “world’s policeman”, these new laws will make it clear that Britain will not be a safe haven for those accused of war crimes. If it is not possible for foreign nationals resident in the UK to face trial where their crimes took place we will, for crimes committed since 1991, be able to prosecute them under UK law.’ Great PR quote but the outcome since 2009 has been precisely NO action at all. Is this what the law change was really all about?

Meanwhile the four accused genocidaire continued their peaceful lives in their local communities in Walton on the Naze (Essex), Wythenshawe (Manchester), Bedford and Islington, (London). In Europe, the UN and USA the justice system was slowly but surely taking action against those Rwandan residents who were suspected of complicity in the genocide. (link to timeline) Belgium and Finland held national court proceedings that resulted in convictions for Rwandan genocide suspects and the USA deported a suspect back to Rwanda to stand trial. In a landmark judgement in October 2011, the European Court of Human Rights decided in favour of the extradition to Rwanda of suspect Sylvere Ahorugeze, who had been arrested in Sweden, ruling he would get a fair trial. The following year the Hutu extremist firebrand Leon Mugesera was extradited from Canada after years of legal fighting was finally exhausted. In April 2012 there was another landmark ruling as the UN too accepted that Rwanda’s judicial reforms made it possible to send back to Kigali suspects held by the ICTR in Arusha, given the International Tribunal was feted to close its doors within a short time-frame (December 2015).

Perhaps emboldened by the ECHR, UN and other European countries deciding that extradition to Rwanda could take place, on 29 May 2013, the lives of the four UK Rwandan suspects were shattered as police raided their homes and took them into custody for the start of new extradition proceedings. They were joined now by a fifth suspect living in Ashford, Kent – Celestin Mutabaruka, the former forestry official turned politician turned cleric. Having arrived in the UK with wife Rose in 1998, the couple had managed to get sponsorship to undertake degree courses at Wye college. In 2008, Mutabaruka turned from agriculture to God, by founding the Fountain (Pentecostal) Church in Willesborough, Ashford, as part of his company ‘Belles of Revival (worldwide) ministries. In 2012 Mutabaruka had founded his second political party – his first in 1993 had been an offshoot of Habyarimana’s MRND. This one, named rather happily ‘Rwanda Rise and Shine’ seemed to have almost no members. It has no internet presence and is difficult to find any information about. However, it gave Mutabaruka the excuse after his arrest that he was being targeted for ‘political reasons’ not because of the horrific genocidal crimes with which he was accused.

This time the now five accused were released shortly after their arrests, with the UK government noting the long-time scale of any extradition case and that imprisonment on remand was an expensive option. The case at Westminster Magistrates Court took two and a half years before District Court Judge Emma Arbuthnot gave her judgement  on 22 December 2015. Extradition was again refused, with Arbuthnot citing concerns about the accused getting a fair trial in Rwanda. She noted however that all 5 men had prima facie cases that should be answered in a trial in the UK if no extradition was possible. Within weeks the Rwandan government announced it would appeal to the High Court, ushering in another year and a half of legal decision-making. On 28 July 2017 the High Court in London, in what turned out to be the final judgement after ten years of highly expensive legal wrangling, upheld the earlier decision to bar extradition of the five genocide suspects.

Certainly, the experienced and skilled defence legal teams – the case costing more than £3 million so far – proved to be more than a match for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Barristers such as Diane Ellis QC, who represented Nteziryayo, was a veteran of the ICTR where she had defended a number of the most prominent genocidaire including the creator and director of Hutu hate radio RTLM, Ferdinand Nahimana and Augustin Ngirabatware, Kabuga’s son-in-law. Top international extradition case barristers such as Alun Jones QC (for Bajinya/Brown), Edward Fitzgerald QC (for Ugirashebuja), and Tim Moloney QC and Iain Edwards (for Munyaneza) were on display at the High Court appeal case to represent their clients. Current Labour party leader Kier Starmer, when previously a private lawyer and before becoming head of the CPS, also represented Ugirashebuja.

Some of the law firms and individuals who represented the accused genocidaire between 2006 and 2017 – they include Labour Party leader Sir Kier Starmer – then a senior barrister.

The conclusion of the extradition cases meant the accused could now walk away knowing any prosecution by the UK justice system was likely, if it took place at all, to take many, many years.

The one, most significant, voice missing from all the legal wrangling, the political rhetoric and posturing, the police investigations and cries of innocence from the alleged genocide perpetrators was that of the survivors and their families. Each time there was a development in the story – the start of extradition proceedings or judgements – local and national news reporters trooped to Ashford, Bedford and Islington, Walton on the Naze and Wythenshawe to knock on the door of the accused and hear their protests of not guilty. Or they spoke to members of the local community and hear how the men were so good helping out in church, were wonderful husbands and fathers, were kind to an animals and that such allegations could not possibly be true. No one bothered to talk to survivors of the genocide, many of whom live in the UK. They live with their pain in silence and anonymity. No media come to their doors to ask how they manage to continue their lives when suffering from the loss of some/all of their close family, or having suffered multiple rape or disfigurement. A very rare interview with a genocide survivor was carried out by the New Internationalist magazine in 2010 . Sadly, the survivor, Jean-Baptiste Kayigamba, died in 2023, but he leaves an important written legacy to the truth. As with the debate over Nazi perpetrators in the UK in the 1980s and 90s, the lives of those who suffered, and would suffer every day of the lives from the emotional anguish of what had happened, were ignored.

In January 2018, the Met Police’s counter-terrorism unit, S.O.15 received a referral from Rwandan authorities relating to the five suspects and, with an initial estimate of a mammoth 10 years to complete their task, the British authorities finally actioned the task of gathering evidence.

In a debate in the House of Commons on 9 April 2019 resulting from an urgent question to Ben Wallace, Minister for Security and Economic Crime, Parliamentarians from all sides noted their dismay that the UK lack of action was making the country more appealing to foreign perpetrators seeking refuge. Dame Margaret Hodge noted, for example: ‘Were we talking about people who were allegedly involved in the Nazi holocaust, there would be a much stronger sense of urgency on the action that needs to be taken. In that context, I believe the Minister [Wallace] is defending the indefensible. During the extradition proceedings, there have been 10 years in which I assume information has been gathered by the authorities. To say that it will take a further three to five years, or probably closer to 10 years, to bring the matter to trial is just unbelievable. Complexity and thoroughness do not justify this level of delay, and I urge him to listen to the unanimous voices on both sides of the House and do all in his power—it is not about resources but about a will to act—to ensure that the police pursue this and that these people are brought to justice much more swiftly.’

Mohammad Yasin MP: an alleged genocide perpetrator and traumatised genocide survivor both live only streets away from each other in Bedford

Mohammad Yasin, MP for Bedford, told Wallace: ‘Not long after my election, I met a constituent who had seen their family members brutally killed during the Rwandan genocide. Her story was heart-breaking. It is unbearable for her that one of the alleged perpetrators of those horrific acts of violence now lives in her town and is free to continue with his family life without fear of extradition. She is asking when she will see justice for her brothers.’

Mary Creagh MP was equally blunt: ‘10 years ago, when we were joint vice-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on genocide prevention, sitting in a meeting with Jack Straw on closing the impunity gap in the law and making sure that alleged war criminals could be prosecuted in this country. People will look at us today and say that our judicial system and our asylum system are supposed to give sanctuary to those fleeing human rights oppressors and atrocities, and that they should not be abused by the alleged perpetrators of war crimes. There is no time limit on justice, so why did the police not investigate these crimes in parallel with the extradition process? Will the Minister report to this House on a six-monthly basis so that we are not here still demanding justice for the survivors on the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide?’

Wallace replied that while the police had put a 10-year timescale on the investigation, he hoped it would be completed in 3-5 years. And that while he did not like alleged war criminals ‘roming free’ – and being taxpayer funded – in the UK, it was the courts, not the government that had stopped the extradition and so now it was just a case of waiting for the police to investigate and gather evidence for a trial.

It took another 18 months before, in September 2020, UK police finally questioned four of the five Rwandan suspects about their alleged involvement in the genocide. The one exception was Charles Munyaneza who had suffered a stroke and was therefore not called in to answer for his alleged role. UK government ministers have continued, since Wallace’s statement in 2019, to insist that the matter is now in the hands of the anti-terrorism unit S.O.15 and that it is fully resourced to fully carry out its remit. They will not answer questions on how, or if, the investigation is actually happening, or any timescale for results to happen, citing the fact it is a ‘live’ case and therefore they cannot comment because of any impact on a free and fair trial should one ever take place.

In January and May 2023 S.O.15 officers returned again to Rwanda to carry out more interviews and speak to witnesses. Five years after the UK started the investigation it would seem they still are nowhere near concluding their work. Minister Wallace’s 3-5 year timescale has already passed.

For survivors, the trauma, sadness and guilt of what they went through never leaves them; what does disappear is the hope of finding justice, of gaining some small sense of right from wrong for their loved ones. For seeing impunity and denial ended. They watch and see other European and North American countries acting to extradite or put on trial. And wonder why the UK has become a world-leader in impunity.

In summer 2022 France finally put on trial – after a 16 year delay – the prefect of Gikongoro, Luarent Bucyibaruta, the ‘boss’ of two of the UK accused, the mayors Charles Munyaneza and Emmanuel Nteziryayo. Munyaneza refused to travel to France to speak for the defence of the accused. After a month-long trial, Bucyibaruta was convicted However due to his age and frailness he was almost immediately released from his sentence and allowed to go home. The French authorities decided that prison would not see to the medical needs of the genocidaire therefore he was better living back at home. A similar outcome happened in one of only two UK war crimes cases with the trial being abandoned after the defendant was deemed medically unfit. The fact is that most French accused genocidaire will also escape justice for the same reason. Many are in their 70s or 80s. In April 2023 the trial of 87 year-old Felicien Kabuga at the international court in the Hague has been abandoned mid way through because of his age and medical condition.  And it is not just the alleged perpetrators who are getting old. sick and dying before being able to testify. Survivors and witnesses too are aging and, as Holocaust trials showed, can have their evidence more easily dismissed by defence lawyers who rubbish it as inaccurate due to time passed or for details are forgotten. Three witnesses died during the proceedings in France against the former gendarme Philip Hategekimana. With witness testimony central to these cases as there is so little documentary evidence, time passing inevitably brings impunity.

Time passed only ever favours perpetrators, not their victims. It inevitably leads to justice passed.

An editorial in the Daily Telegraph on 4 March 1987 noted, in regard to the UK taking action to bring in legislation to prosecute 17 suspected Nazi Holocaust perpetrators that:

‘Nazi hunting has become a frankly distasteful bloodsport. It is no reflection of antisemitism, or of indifference to past atrocities to feel an overwhelming revulsion against the notion of further war crimes trials almost half a century after the alleged horrors took place. There is a futility, a sterility, to continuing a search for vengeance beyond certain limits of time and space.’

Leaving aside the astonishing phrase ‘alleged horrors’ –  i.e. the Telegraph promoting Holocaust denial in such a remarkably casual and flippant way – this editorial stance speaks for many at the top of the UK government not just then but now. Is it futile to seek justice decades after the crime? Why prosecute old men for crimes that took place, however awful, in other countries hundreds of miles away?

The same argument is used of the Rwandan suspects who have been allowed to grow old in their UK retirement by the failure of justice. And it has failed not just Rwandan genocide survivors but also Syrian, Afghan, Sudanese, Iraqi etc… survivors who see suspected perpetrators living untouched in the UK. Justice is not about vengeance as the Telegraph editorial ignorantly notes. Justice is about finding the truth, uncovering right from wrong, and acting with fairness. UK citizens expect when a crime is committed against them that there will be justice. So why is it so different when that crime has been committed not in the UK or not by a then UK resident. Murder is murder – genocide is genocide – humans are humans. The alternative is a world where there is no moral concept of good or evil. Where crimes that lead to mass death or suffering go without comment or redress and merely encourage further such crimes and denial. Where universal jurisdiction – the ability for national courts to hold to account crimes committed abroad – is just a legal anomaly, a public relations sham that in reality is never used.

As an article by the lawyer Simon Foreman notes ‘is often considered that the obligation to ensure prosecution of perpetrators of international crimes is an unwritten obligation, based on international custom. It is based on the principle aut dedere, aut judicare — either extradite, or prosecute – or in other words, either acquire universal jurisdiction to prosecute suspects oneself, or hand them over to a State or international tribunal to do so. The MLA Convention – which States will be asked to sign in The Hague in 2024 – now formally lays down this obligation. French and British diplomats have tried in vain to have it amended and make prosecution optional. But the text adopted on May 26 stipulates that States are obliged to exercise jurisdiction over the perpetrator of an international crime whenever he or she is present on their territory. France and the UK have only obtained the right to formulate a reservation on this point, for a renewable period of three years.’

The history of these five Rwandan genocide suspects in the UK is a history of missed opportunity; of an intrinsic failure not just of justice but of an understanding by authorities at the highest level that humanity is equal and should be judged equally. A crime that takes life in Rwanda, or Darfur, in Syria or Myanmar, is still a crime that shatters human worlds and leaves a trial of universal destruction.

To walk away from justice is to walk away from humanity itself.

To view this article’s original CLICK HERE

BE AWARE THE UK SEEMS TO OFFER PROTECTION FOR THOSE WHO COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN RWANDA!

Genocide Hunters

Genocide Hunters: on the trail of a mass murderer. The true story of how one of the most wanted men on earth – Fulgence Kayishema – was finally caught in May 2023 after 3 decades on the run

Listen to podcast

BREAKING NEWS – January 2025 – 30th commemoration

WILL the 5 Rwandan Genocide suspects living freely and happily finally face trial in 2025? – UK police were back in Rwanda in December gathering yet more evidence, while rumours have it the CPS is AT LAST preparing for a trial (the first) of just ONE of the accused at the Old Bailey in August 2025. It seems the genocide suspects will be facing justice one at a time – one can only hope they all live long enough to have to answer the highly serious charges against them, and the CPS does not botch the prosecution as it did the extradition cases. Rj4G will be closely following every step…
Meanwhile still no word about the 70 year old Rwandan genocide suspect arrested in Gateshead one year ago – police refuse officially to give out further information including his name – though it is well known. More delayed justice…

PHILIPPE HATEGEKIMANA – GUILTY! 17 December, Paris; former gendarme HATEGEKIMANA had his life sentence for genocide upheld by the assize court after a six week appeal hearing; he showed no emotion as the verdict was read by the judge who noted Hategekimana had taken an active part in the murder of the elderly, women and children and was a ‘zealous arm’ of the slaughter. More reaction HERE

GENOCIDE DENIER CHARLES ONANA was found guilty by a French court on 9 December 2024, for ‘trivialising… in an outrageous manner’ the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. He and his publishing director Damien Serieyx from the company Éditions du Toucan were fined 11,000 Euro. The court verdict noted that France would ‘no longer be a haven for denialists’. Onana has made a lucrative living out of downplaying and revising the historical truth about the genocide, selling books and articles laden with his own conspiracy theories. Sadly he is not alone, but this verdict may give him and those who publish/promote his self publicising rubbish a little cause for thought – if they are capable of that.

FELICIEN KABUGA: 29 October, The UN Mechanism has officially refused to give the alleged financier of the genocide a pleasant retirement at a ‘safe house’ in The Hague. After UN judges aborted Kabuga’s trial in August 2023 amidst claims the 88 (or 90) year old was too senile for it to continue, his family have been expending much energy on getting him released from the – admittedly comfortable and expensive – UN detention families where is currently stays. The problem being the countries they want to take him in are, unsurprisingly, not wanting anything to do with such an individual, or one suspects the types of people associated with him.

Eugene RWAMUCYO 31 October, Paris: GUILTY!! The former Butare doctor, who fled to France in 2001, was sentenced last night to 27 years for complicity in genocide and participation in an agreement to commit genocide… Having avoided justice for 17 years, Rwamucyo will finally have time in prison to contemplate the immense suffering his actions caused.
A daily report from the trial available HERE and the trial summing up and verdict account HERE
Survivors HERE speak of their need for justice. Thanks to the French NGO the CPCR whose tireless efforts have brought Rwamucyo to book and who cover the trial in detail as well as taking part in the legal action.

Autumn Move to live in the DRC? Monsieur Z and the 5 other former ICTR detainees living at UN expense in Niger and still searching for a country willing to take them in, may have finally found a solution. The UN confirmed in July an ‘unnamed state’ had indeed expressed a willingness to have these individuals – and a ‘fake-or-not-fake-document’ from the DRC Presidency was doing the rounds on social media in early September purporting to show Félix Tshisekedi proposing this act of ‘benevolence.’ Perhaps – if it’s true – it’s more a case of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend…..’ One thing is for certain, the 6 are refusing point blank to end their sorry days back where they were born, in Rwanda. Better, maybe they feel, to return to the DRC – after all this is where they first fled for protection after the genocidal regime they worked for collapsed 30 years ago… More on the story HERE

UK JUSTICE? – the wheels are turning, but only just…. Met police were back in Rwanda again during May – for yet more evidence collection – will the new UK (Labour) government actually deliver this justice – especially under Sir Kier Starmer who himself defended one of the 5 UK genocide suspects (Celestin Ugirashebuja, who lives comfortably in Walton-in-the-Naze, Essex) in their successful bid to avoid extradition in 2008? … Did Sir Kier really think his client would still be justice-free 16 years later? Is the new UK government intent on repeating the impunity for genocidaire given for the last 80 years which IS the default policy position on this crime of crimes…..

Emmanuel NKUNDUWIMYE, Brussels Assize Court, Belgium, 10 June – GUILTY: Nkunduwimye, a close friend of Paul Rusesabagina (who refused to come and testify from his luxury home in the USA) and interahahmwe deputy leader Georges Rutaganda, was found guilty on Wednesday 5 June of war crimes, genocide, attempted murder and rape. He was sentenced to 25 years prison on Monday 10 June. The court heard testimony read out against him by former interahahmwe treasurer Dieudonne Niyitegeka (now in Canada) who described Nkunduwimye as a ‘thief and rogue’ who organised killings, attacks on women and stole property to make a quick profit.

FULGENCE KAYISHEMA – Cape Town, South Africa, 4 June. Kayishema’s lawyers have made another attempt to prolong his illegal stay in South Africa and avoid his being transferred to the UN Mechanism in Arusha from where he faces being sent to Rwanda to stand trial. Mechanism prosecutors have cited South Africa for failing to transfer him – as is their obligation as a member of the UN. He has now spent over a year in South African custody and clearly aims to avoid justice – especially if it is in Rwanda. In Kayishema’s previous court appearances the focus has been on the 56 counts of immigration fraud against him. Kayishema is accused of killing of 2,000 Tutsi refugees at Nyange church in collusion with the Catholic priest Fr Athanase Seromba, who is already serving life prison for the horrific crime.

GATESHEAD, UK, 25 January, UK Counter Terrorism Policing War Crimes Team arrested a 69 year-old Rwandan on suspicion of involvement in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi – he is the first UK suspect to be arrested for more than 10 years but is yet to be named officially. The suspect has been bailed while investigations continue after being questioned in Newcastle. One can only hope that the Met Police do not take countless years investigating as they have done with the case of the 5 alleged genocidaire who have avoided justice for nearly two decades…The suspect is still to be named officially, though his identity is well-known locally and to RG4G..

Anatole NSENGIYUMVA, Niamey, Niger 7 May, – the butcher of Gisenyi is dead! The 74 year old former Lt. Col, Nsengiyumva was admitted to hospital on 6th May but died the following day. The convicted genocidaire, known for headlining the leadership of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in collusion with Col. Theoneste Bagosora, had been one of seven former ICTR detainees living in UN-funded retirement in Niger having failed to convince any other country – notably France or Belgium – to allow them a residence permit. Few will shed tears for a man whose life’s work was to bring innate sorrow, grief and horror to hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

FABIEN NERETSE – Liege, Belgium, 9 April 2023 – Time has finally run out completely for the unrepentant convicted killer, who has died in hospital, having been transferred there from prison where he was serving 25 years for genocide/murder committed in 1994 after a much-delayed trial in 2019. Neretse had fled initially to France under an assumed name, before moving to Belgium. In a final act of viciousness to his many victims, his family chose to quote the (wrongly attributed) biblical verse from 2 Timothy 4, 7 on the death notice that pictured the smiling killer: ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness,’ Readers can make up their own mind on the current destination of this ‘unspeakable’ man.

FRODUALD RUKESHANGABO AND CELESTIN MUNYABURANGO, Brisbane, Australia, 25 February – two suspected genocide killers have been identified as living happily in Australia after media there tracked them down. RUKESHANGABO, now working as a driving instructor in Brisbane, is alleged to have been part of Hutu militia that tracked down Tutsi before hacking them to death. Former head teacher MUNYABURANGO is said to have killed 21 Tutsi – his whereabouts in unknown but he is thought to be in Brisbane too where his relations live. A documentary by ABC ‘The Wanted’ on how the media tracked down the two suspect is available HERE

ANATOLE NSENGIYUMVA, Protais Zigiranyiazo et al... Niger, 4 January 2024: It’s raining free UN cash again for the seven former UN detainees. The now annual $10,000 UN handout to the ‘butcher of Gisenyi’ and each of the six other former ICTR detainees has been ordered by a UN judge – the third such $10,000 grant. Living in UN funded accommodation in Niamey, Niger and enjoying UN medical care and in some cases highly expensive legal fees, the UN ‘duty of care’ to these men has left survivors and victims totally bereft. One can only wonder why the UN pays while the extensive families of the former detainees living in Europe seem unable to muster a dime to support their ‘nearest and dearest’.

PIERRE BASABOSE and SERAPHIN TWAHIRWA – Brussels Assize Court, 21 December, GUILTY! The ‘King of Evil’, Seraphin Twahirwa, has been sentenced to life in prison after a two month trial for acts of unfathomable cruelty and depravity, including the mass rape of Tutsi women, murdering babies and whole families. Witnesses gave truly horrific evidence, recalling how this butcher personally killed a woman pregnant with twins, His ‘boss’ Basabose will be held for life in a secure unit for his own terrible crimes – senile dementia having saved him from prison.

SOSTHENE MUNYEMANA – Paris Assize Court, 20 December – GUILTY! Twenty-eight years after the first criminal complaint was made in France against him, the former gynaecologist from Butare and Bordeaux – the so-called ‘Butcher of Tumba’ – has been pronounced guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Munyemana was sentenced to 24 years. The court President noted Munyemana had ‘prepared, organised and steered the genocide of the Tutsis in Tumba on a daily basis’. More on this story here. Daily trial reports can be read HERE.

Laurent BUCYIBARUTA: Saint-André-les-Vergers, France, 6 December. The 79 year-old convicted genocidaire and former Prefect of Gikongoro, is dead. Despite being found guilty of horrific crimes at his trial in Paris in July 2022, he was enjoying freedom again awaiting his appeal. It took 22 years for French justice to catch up with him.

UN SECURITY COUNCIL, 12 December 2023 – The yearly report of the UN Mechanism President Graciela Gatti Santana to the UNSC members, and surrounding debate, took place with Prosecutor Serge Brammertz expressing his ‘immense dissatisfaction’ that Felicien Kabuga has avoided judgement for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Rwanda’s delegate noted that help was needed by the international community to bring more than 1,000 suspected genocidaire to justice – many of them still free and living happily in the west.

MIKAELI MUHIMANA, Mali, 26 October: 2023 The 62 year old former counseiller of Gishyita commune, Kibuye, has died while serving his life sentence in Mali. His trial in 2005 at the ICTR heard how Muhimana raped and tortured many Tutsi girls – including disembowelling a pregnant woman, removing the baby which cried for a time before dying – also beheading a man whose head he then publicly paraded. He was found guilty of genocide, rape and murder.

PIERRE KAYONDO: Paris, 19 September 2023: The former prefect of Kibuye and deputy prefect of Gitarama was arrested and put in investigative detention as French authorities look into charges he committed genocide. It follows a complaint by survivors and the NGO CPCR against him in 2021.

SYLVESTRE GACUMBITSI, Mali, 10 September: 2023 the 80 year old died in prison where he was serving life for his horrific crimes – notably at Nyarubuye church – where the aftermath of the massacre of thousands of Tutsis was filmed by BBC journalist Fergal Keane. On 4 July ALOYS SIMBA, convicted for genocide but controversially released early after serving just 18 years for his genocidal role, died in Porto-Novo, Benin.

FELICIEN KABUGA: The Hague, 7 August: UN Appeal Court overrules its trial court and decides that no trial of any form can go ahead and the man accused of playing a leading part in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi should be free to die happily in his own bed – the question now is to find a state that will take him.

PHILIPPE HATEGEKIMANA – Paris, 28 June 2023 – is found guilty of genocide at Assize Court and sentenced to life in prison. His trial heard horrific, heart-breaking testimony over 6 weeks of his murderous crimes that took place in and around Nyanza in April/May 1994.

THARCISSE MUVUNYI, Niger, 11 June at his UN-funded accommodation in Niger. He was the only suspect ever to be extradited by the UK. Muvunyi had been freed early by the ICTR from his 15 sentence for inciting genocide, and was one of 8 former detainees currently living at full UN taxpayer expense in Niger.

Major JEAN-PIERRE KARANGWA: on 6 June the Netherlands Supreme Court, refused his extradition – after 25 in the country will they now put him on trial themselves or continue impunity?

French paper Liberation uncovers the alleged role of Col. JEAN-MARIE VIANNEY NZAPFAKUMUNSI – free in France for 25 years – in horrific genocidal attacks in Nyange.

Westminster, UK: 6 June: Parliamentarians hear the Rwandan High Commissioner tell them that the UK’s ‘man-made impunity’ needs to be defeated – politics and words must give way to justice after 17 years of legal failure.

A survivor stands at the Nyanza memorial where more than 2,000 Tutsis were massacred by Hutu militia and military.

A devastated survivor of the genocide at Ntarama church where 5,000 Tutsi men, women, children and babies were killed.

Western retirement

Genocide perpetrators and war criminals deliberately choose western retirements to enjoy a high standard of living shielded by human rights laws that protect them – not their victims. For the vast majority, old age and mental/physical frailty will frustrate justice before justice ever tries catch up with them. As elderly Holocaust perpetrators die peacefully in their own beds after enjoying 75 years of happy western impunity, so they are replaced by genocidaire who have come to make new ‘justice-free’ homes…from Rwanda, Afghanistan, DRC, Eritrea, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria South America, Zimbabwe…

Between 2010- 2016, 817 individuals from the above countries were subject to ‘adverse recommendations’ by UK immigration staff who suspected them of complicity in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. In the period 2010- 2018, 330 suspected war criminals, already living in the UK for several years, even applied for citizenship! It is unclear if any of these 330 would-be British citizens have had any action taken against them.

The UK judiciary will not extradite suspected perpetrators to ‘unsafe’ countries – the UK government will not resource their trials – the result is a perfect storm of genocide impunity