Genocide in Rwanda: one of the last fugitives arrested in South Africa

He was one of the last four fugitives wanted for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide

Genocide in Rwanda: one of the last fugitives arrested in South Africa

He was one of the last four fugitives wanted for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Fulgence Kayishema was arrested on Wednesday (May 24) in South Africa, UN prosecutors investigating the case said Thursday. .

"One of the world's most wanted fugitives...has been arrested in Paarl, South Africa," in an operation with South African authorities, a UN court has heard in a press release. He had been on the run since 2001, said the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (the “Mechanism”), tasked with completing the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

More than 2,000 people murdered

According to the indictment, Mr. Kayishema, born in 1961, murdered, along with other individuals, more than 2,000 refugee men, women, elderly and children in the church of Nyange, in the commune of Kivumu. , April 15, 1994.

He allegedly "directly participated in the planning and execution of this massacre," the court said, "including procuring and distributing gasoline to burn down the church with the refugees inside." "When that failed, Mr. Kayishema and others used a bulldozer to collapse the church, burying and killing the refugees inside," he said.

Mr. Kayishema, charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity, used numerous pseudonyms and false documents to conceal his identity and presence, the Mechanism said.

The ICTR convicted a total of 62 people. Others, like Augustin Bizimana, one of the main organizers of the massacre, died without facing international justice.