ACI Africa, Jun 1, 2023 / 13:00 pm
Fulgence Kayishema, a former Rwandan police officer who is suspected of having ordered the killing of at least 2,000 Tutsis who were seeking refuge at St. Paul’s Nyange Catholic Parish in the current Nyundo Diocese during the 1994 genocide, has been arrested in South Africa.
Reuters reported May 25 that Kayishema, one of the top suspects in the genocide, which claimed some 800,000 lives, was arrested May 24 on a grape farm in South Africa while using a false name, Donatien Nibashumba.
The suspect has been on the run since 2001 when the now-defunct International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accused him of genocide for his role in the destruction of the Nyange Catholic church.
Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), the U.N. body that took over ICTR’s function, said Kayishema’s arrest “ensures that he will finally face justice for his alleged crimes.”