Britain is now a haven for Genocide suspects
Kigali: Last week, on the day the world marked the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Britain officially became a safe haven for suspected mass murderers. This is the incomprehensible and inhumane message two senior judges have given the grieving survivors of the Rwandan genocide by freeing four genocide suspects Rwanda wanted to put on trial – effectively saying that alleged Rwandan mass murderers are welcome to live in Britain.
I know for sure that several Rwandan killers are hiding in this country. After the release of the four, they must be rubbing their hands in glee, assured of immunity from prosecution.
In their landmark High Court ruling, the judges decided the four Rwandans, two of whom had been living here under false identities until exposed by The Sunday Times, cannot be deported to Rwanda to be put on trial for mass murder.
They did not dispute the quality or quantity of prosecution evidence that they had committed heinous crimes in their country, for which they should be punished. But they said there was a “real risk” the four would not receive a fair trial in Rwanda. This would not matter if we could try them instead in our domestic courts, as Belgium, Switzerland and Canada have given themselves the legal power to do. But we can’t.
Britain approved the relevant genocide legislation far too late in the day, only in the early part of the new millennium. It was not made retroactive to 1994. So Rwandan genocide suspects can now go scot-free and British law has shown itself incapable of responding to one of the most monstrous crimes in recent history.
To cap it all, this shocking development happened on the very day genocide survivors were commemorating the start of the slaughter in which 800,000 people were hacked to death in the space of 100 days.
What a welcome signal we have given to these men. What a cruel blow for the traumatised relatives of the victims.
A blow too for all those from the Crown Prosecution Service, British diplomats at the embassy in Rwanda and Rwandan officials themselves who, over the past three years, invested an immense amount of time, energy, money and commitment to get Rwandan justice in line with British expectations for a fair trial for the four.
There is much Rwanda’s justice system can be criticised for. But these officials are convinced it did everything it could with its limited resources to prepare for a fair trial. So much so that the authorities there faced criticism for setting up a two-tier trial system for major genocide suspects; one for the four they were expecting to be sent back from Britain – entitled to representation by foreign lawyers and good detention facilities – and another for the rest.
How this legal farce was allowed to happen defies belief. This weekend, the four released men will be back with their families, perhaps living on benefits. They may sue for compensation. One is already a British citizen. The others will no doubt apply. They are here for good now, seemingly untouchable even though at least two of them violated every sort of immigration law to sneak into the country.
Survivors are sickened by the outcome. In 1994, Drocelle Kantetere’s parents and six siblings were massacred. She had long accused one of the four men, Charles Munyaneza, 50, a former Rwandan government official, of orchestrating their deaths and the murder of thousands of other civilians. Unknown to her, Munyaneza came to Britain in 1999, using a false name. In 2002 the Home Office approved his refugee status and granted him unlimited leave to stay.
In 2006 he was found by The Sunday Times, in Bedford, working as a cleaner. Another of the four to be freed last week, a former Rwandan mayor Emmanuel Nteziryayo, 55, also found by The Sunday Times, has been accused in Rwanda of complicity in the murder of more than 87,000 people.
Kantetere, 39, was looking forward to Munyaneza’s trial. She hoped Britain would offset some of the very negative decisions of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, which is due to close at the end of this year with its work incomplete.
Munyaneza’s new-found freedom has struck her like a dagger to the heart. “Munyaneza is the one who has everything now, but I have no one left in my family. I accuse Munyaneza of forcing me to be so alone, to try and get by in a world I find empty of meaning,” she said when he was discovered hiding in Britain.
Sorrowful words. And even more sorrowful now she realises her murdered loved ones are never going to have justice and British judges have instituted impunity for the crime of genocide in Rwanda.
Rwanda News Agency
