Genocide suspect held in Canada

2005-10-20 09:46

Ottawa - A Rwandan man was arrested on Wednesday in Toronto and charged on seven counts of committing crimes against humanity in the African country in 1994, the federal police said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Desire Munyaneza, 39, was accused of committing crimes against humanity in the prefecture of Butare.

Currently a resident of Toronto, he was arrested after a five-year investigation by the Canadian federal police in Canada, Rwanda and Europe.

Munyaneza is the first person to be charged in Canada under a federal law on crimes against humanity and war crimes enacted in October 2000.

He is charged with two counts of genocide, two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes.

About 800 000 people, mainly members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group, were slaughtered by extremists of the Hutu group in 1994.

"Without the tremendous assistance and co-operation of our War Crimes Programme partners in Canada and the United Nations international criminal tribunal for Rwanda, we would never have been able to arrest this suspect today," said inspector Graham Burnside, the officer in charge of the war crimes section.

Another Rwandan, Leon Mugesera, a Hutu, asked in June to be prosecuted in Canada under the crimes against humanity law after the Canadian Supreme Court approved his extradition to Rwanda on genocide allegations.

Mugesera, who still lives in Canada, was an aide to former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.

He made a controversial speech in November 1992 that Canada's Supreme Court deemed an incitement to genocide against Rwanda's Tutsis.

- AFP