By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A man suspected of having a hand in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, on Friday appeared in a Cape Town court, two days after his arrest on a South African farm, after being on the run for twenty-two years.
Fulgence Kayishema is facing trial on allegations bordering on genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
The former fugitive, 62, was until his arrest, one of the last four fugitives wanted for their role in the genocide that led to the deaths of 1,000,000,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsi.
The mass slaughter was perpetrated by Hutu extremists and Kayishema appeared unperturbed in the dock.
Surrounded by armed officers wearing helmets and bullet-proof waistcoats, the suspect admitted that he was the man wanted by the courts and the international police.
He is accused of using the name Donatien Nibashumba to evade arrest.
Kayishema was spotted on a farm in Paarl, some 60 km from Cape Town on Wednesday, where he was arrested with the help of Interpol in South Africa, UN prosecutors announced on Thursday.
“A powerful message showing that those suspected of committing such crimes cannot escape justice”, UN chief’s spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric says.
To cover his tracks for the investigators, he is said to have benefited from the help of relatives and members of the former Rwandan Armed Forces and Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, as well as people who adhere to the genocidal ideology of Hutu Power.
Fulgence Kayishema was a judicial police inspector during the genocide in Rwanda. He was “one of the world’s most wanted fugitives for genocide”, according to the international justice system.
The accused “directly participated in the planning and execution” of the massacre of more than 2,000 Tutsi refugees in the Nyange church, in the Kivumu commune (north-east), “in particular by procuring and distributing petrol to set fire to the church with the refugees inside”, according to the UN prosecutors.
“When this failed, Mr Kayishema and others used a bulldozer to cause the church to collapse, burying and killing the refugees inside,” the indictment said.
He is also accused of helping to supervise the macabre transfer of the church’s corpses to mass graves.
