A court in London, UK, has granted conditional bail to Lt Gen Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, Rwanda’s head of National Intelligence and Security Service.

The General will stay at the Rwandan High Commissioner’s house, report to police daily, and is subject to £1 million (about Rwf1.2 billion) surety, according to the conditions of the bail.

Karake is being defended by a team that included Cherie Booth QC, a barrister at Matrix Chambers in London, and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Westminster Magistrates’ Court gallery was packed with supporters.

The court set September 28 as the date for full extradition hearing.

Mark Summers QC, another member of the General’s defence team, indicated to the court that his client would fight the extradition attempt on grounds of diplomatic immunity and revocation of the Spanish warrant.

Summers referred to an earlier leaked US diplomatic cable in his defence, which called the Spanish warrant a "bloated political tract.” The defence attorney said Spanish prosecution is "driven by parties with links to the Genocide” in Rwanda.

"The General is, of course, a man of impeccable character,” Summers said of Karake, "He is not a rogue general. He is a senior member of a respected and democratic government.”

He told the court that the Spanish warrant sought "to criminalise the whole of current Rwandan government,” yet Interpol declined to circulate it.

Speaking to journalists outside the court, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Johnston Busingye, said: "I am hoping in the end justice will prevail. We have always insisted this Spanish indictment is illegitimate. I am hoping this is the beginning of the journey to expose it for what it is.”

Genocide survivors appalled

In Rwanda, a Genocide survivors’ organisation has written an open letter to the UK government, calling for his immediate release.

"We survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi, are appalled at the politically motivated arrest of Gen Karake, a great man who sacrificed himself and saved us from killing grounds of the barbaric genocide perpetrators,” reads the letter by Ibuka and other survivor groups.

"Since 1994, he has worked tirelessly to protect Rwandans from those who wish to continue their genocide mission. We are outraged at this injustice, which undermines Rwanda’s renewal 21 years after more than a million people were killed in the Genocide against the Tutsi,” the letter says in part.

The survivors stress that in allowing itself to "be used by genocidaires and their sympathisers, the UK government is undoing the good relationship it has built with the people of Rwanda.”

Instead of harassing innocent liberators, survivors urged the UK government to find and bring to justice the hundreds of killers responsible for the Genocide who today roam freely across the UK and Europe.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw