UK and Genocide fugitives: How the mighty have fallen

RE: “What next after British court blocks Genocide extraditions?” (The New Times, August 7).

Tuesday, August 08, 2017
A Rwandan Security police officer handcuffs Leon Mugesera on his arrival in 2012 at Kigali international Airport from Canada. He was last year sentenced to life in prison over his....

Editor,

RE: "What next after British court blocks Genocide extraditions?” (The New Times, August 7). In reality, this, like previous UK court judgments related to the same suspects, was a political decision that gave infinitely greater weight to inputs from the likes of Human Rights Watch and their fellow Western anti-Rwanda political activist colleagues than the imperatives of justice for Genocide victims and survivors.

Anyone expecting any improvement in a British judiciary system that, under the influence of the allies of genocidaires, favours the interests of Genocide suspects against the imperatives of justice for their victims and survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi is really a perfect illustration of the triumph of hope over cold experience.

And, in this particular case, the influence over the UK courts by the likes of Ken Roth – whose venomous hatred of Rwanda is such that it overrides any care he might possibly have for his organisation’s loss of credibility from its alliance with genocidal suspects – is such that they are prepared to give short shrift to their countries’ treaty obligations to prevent the crime and/or to punish those suspected of involvement in the supreme international crime of genocide as provided for in the 1948 Convention to which both the UK and Rwanda are subject.

How the mighty have fallen.

Mwene Kalinda