By Jared Kleinman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
KAMPALA, Uganda — Idelphonse Nizeyimana, one of the most wanted fugitives from Rwanda’s 1994 100-day genocide, was arrested in Uganda this week, Ugandan and Rwandan officials said Tuesday. Ugandan officials said he was caught using false documents to travel from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Kenya and was subsequently detained. Nizeyimana was extradited to the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, Tanzania, which has charged him with genocide, complicity in genocide and direct and public incitement to genocide.
During the Rwandan genocide, Nizeyimana was second-in-command in charge of military and intelligence operations for the École des sous-officiers (ESO). The former intelligence chief, Nizeyimana is alleged to have participated in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 which left about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead in 100 days.
Besides helping draft plans to exterminate the Tutsis, and drawing up death lists of intellectuals and other influential figures, Nizeyimana is accused of creating secret units of extremist Hutus to carry out the killings. One of these units is alleged to have killed Queen Rosalie Gicanda, the widow of the former Rwandan king during colonial times, and a symbolic figure for Tutsis. During the 100-day massacres, Nizeyimana is said to have ordered the erection of roadblocks where Tutsis were stopped and killed, and is accused of personally sanctioning the killings of entire Tutsi families on account of their ethnicity.
Nizeyimana fled the country in June or July 1994 as the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by the current president, Paul Kagame, advanced. On November 27, 2000, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) issued an indictment against Nizeyimana, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity. The US had offered a reward of up to $5m (£3m) for his capture.
More recently, Mr. Nizeyimana was a top commander of a rebel army of former Rwandan soldiers hiding out in the forests of eastern Congo, Rwandan officials said. That force, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, has been blamed for some of the most atrocious attacks in eastern Congo and is widely seen as a threat to regional peace. “He [Nizeyimana] was an agitator, a handler, the chief killer in Butare,” said Rwandan justice minister, Tharcisse Karugarama. “The arrest of this man is a very big relief to survivors of the genocide.”
With Nizeyimana’s arrest, 11 top suspects remain with similar bounties on their heads for their alleged roles in the 1994 genocide.
For more information, please see:
AllAfrica – Top Rwandan Genocide Suspect Arrested in Kampala – 6 October 2009
Huffington Post – Idelphonse Nizeyimana, Rwanda Queen-Killing Genocide Suspect, Arrested In Uganda – 6 October 2009
The Guardian – Key Rwanda genocide suspect arrested in Uganda – 6 October 2009
New York Times – Rwandan Fugitive Is Captured in Uganda – 6 October 2009
Reuters – Uganda arrests most-wanted Rwanda genocide suspect – 6 October 2009
