Aboard the papal plane, 27 May, 2023 / 9:25 pm (ACI Africa).
Fulgence Kayishema, a former Rwandan police officer suspected to have ordered the killing of at least 2,000 Tutsis who were seeking refuge at St. Paul’s Nyange Catholic Parish of the current Nyundo Diocese during the 1994 genocide has been arrested in South Africa.
In a May 25 report, Reuters indicates that Mr. Kayishema who is among the top-ranked suspects in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that claimed some 800,000 lives was arrested on Wednesday, May 24 in a grape farm in South Africa while using a false name, Donatien Nibashumba.
The suspect has been on the run since 2001 when the defunct International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accused him of genocide over his role in the destruction of the Nyange Catholic Church.
Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), the UN body that took over ICTR function, says Mr. Kayishema’s arrest "ensures that he will finally face justice for his alleged crimes.”
While confirming the arrest, the leadership of Hawks, an elite South African police unit, said that the suspect is to be extradited to Rwanda on Friday, May 26 after appearing in South Africa’s Bellville Magistrate’s court.
