Last Friday evening, officers attached to the Diplomatic Police Unit in Kenya picked up a university of Nairobi lecturer, Charles Nyandwi, suspecting he was genocide fugitive Felicien Kabuga.

Kabuga, who is wanted in connection with the 1994 genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, has been on run for 14 years. When the news first filtered through, many were excited.

Nyandwi was released from police custody the following evening after authorities confirmed he was not the man they were looking for. He had been held in custody for nearly 24 hours.

Who is Nyandwi?

According to police reports from Nairobi, Nyandwi was born on April 26, 1959 in Kigali, Rwanda.

Nyandwi, who speaks English, French, and Kinyarwanda, was a former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Juvenal Habyarimana’s government.

It is said that Nyandwi was sacked from cabinet in the early days of 1994 but the reasons for his dismissal are not clear. He had been a minister from 1980 to 1994.

At the peak of the genocide, Nyandwi fled to Kenya. There are reports which indict that upon reaching Nairobi, Nyandwi reportedly denounced his Rwandese citizenship before becoming a Kenyan. His home is in Ngong near Nairobi where he lives with his wife.

In 1995, he was appointed to teach applied mathematics at the University of Nairobi’s Chiromo campus. After obtaining Kenyan citizenship in the same year, he started to teach.

In 1995, the ICTR was step up to try those committed genocide and Nyandwi was among those on the wanted list before his name was reportedly cleared.

The police in Nairobi had reportedly been monitoring Nyandwi movements until last Friday when they seized him. yandwi presented himself before a team of detectives looking for Kabuga to explain various issues regarding the Rwanda genocide.

Detectives investigating the saga said Nyandwi gave them letters he had obtained from the Tanzanian-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda exonerating him from allegations linking him to the genocide.

He also reportedly had letters from the Rwanda government clearing him over the matter. Nyandwi was allowed to leave and continue with business.

Ends