A Rwandan genocide suspect may seek asylum in South Africa. Here’s why. – National | 24CA News
One of the final remaining suspects accused of orchestrating the brutal massacres of the Rwandan genocide almost 30 years in the past plans to use for political asylum in South Africa, his lawyer stated Tuesday.
The U.N. tribunal charged Kayishema in 2001 with being a central determine within the slaughter of greater than 2,000 folks looking for refuge at a church.
Now 62 years previous, he was arrested final month within the small city of Paarl close to Cape Town, South Africa, having been on the run for half his life.
More than 800,000 folks had been killed when militias made up primarily of members of Rwanda’s Hutu ethnic group turned on their Tutsi neighbors. The killings, an try to wipe out the minority Tutsis, had been triggered on April 6, 1994, when a aircraft carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down, killing him.
Kayishema is accused of being one of many leaders of a Hutu mob that killed Tutsi males, ladies and kids who had been hiding within the Catholic church to flee the sudden eruption of violence. Kayishema and others tried to burn down the church and, when that failed, they used a bulldozer to smash it down, crushing to dying the Tutsis inside, in keeping with the fees towards him.
Ultimately, greater than 2,000 folks had been killed in and across the church, the genocide indictment towards Kayishema says.
The U.N. tribunal needs Kayishema to be despatched to one of many seats of the tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, after which to Rwanda for trial, however it’s unclear how lengthy it might take for South Africa to extradite him.
Following his May 24 arrest, Kayishema additionally was charged in South Africa with 54 counts of immigration offenses and fraud. He allegedly used pretend names and different falsified info to amass paperwork to enter and stay in South Africa, the place he had been for a minimum of 20 years, in keeping with the fees filed by prosecutors.
He appeared in court docket Tuesday for that case. The proceedings might have delayed his extradition even when Kayishema didn’t intend to hunt asylum, a transfer that requires additional proceedings.
His lawyer, Juan Smuts, informed reporters Tuesday that Kayishema left Rwanda in 1994 “out of fear for his life.”
He hid in a minimum of three different African nations _ Congo, Mozambique and Tanzania _ earlier than arriving in South Africa someday between 2000 and 2002, Smuts stated, including that Kayishema was 62 years previous and never 61, as South African police beforehand said.
Smuts stated the immigration and fraud case towards Kayishema must be placed on maintain whereas his software for asylum was thought of. South African prosecuting authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila disputed that and stated the asylum declare had no bearing on Kayishema’s felony case.
However, any extradition will seemingly be delayed for a minimum of two months after the decide postponed Kayishema’s South African court docket case till Aug. 18. He has not entered a plea on any of the fees and stays jailed.
The bloodbath on the Nyange church in western Rwanda was one in all many horrific episodes within the 1994 genocide. A memorial to the victims now stands rather than the church.
Aloys Rwamasirabo, who lived within the Nyange space and knew Kayishema, survived the bloodbath however stated 9 of his kids had been killed. Rwamasirabo stated Kayishema, who held the rank of police inspector on the time, ordered lots of the killings.
“My wish is that he is brought back to Rwanda (to) face justice in the presence of survivors whom he committed crimes against,” Rwamasirabo stated. “He carried a lot of power, and his orders were obeyed.”
Kayishema didn’t converse throughout his newest court docket listening to and stood and confronted the decide via most of it whereas surrounded by seven armed law enforcement officials. But he smiled, waved and gave a thumbs-up to a few of his members of the family sitting within the courtroom.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
