Genocide suspect arrested in Gabon

KIGALI - Another suspected Genocide fugitive was on Monday arrested by authorities in Libreville, the Gabonese capital, the National Public Prosecution Authority has announced. According to its spokesperson, Augustin Nkusi, the news that Dr. Chrysostome Ndindabahizi ‘s arrest was confirmed to them by Rwanda’s Interpol liaison Office. “This man has been an employee in the Gabonese President’s Office,” Nkusi said yesterday. According to prosecution, Ndindabahizi’s indictment was prepared and sent to the Gabonese government through diplomatic channels, in January 2009. Ndindabahizi’s Genocide charges include complicity and conspiracy to commit Genocide; public incitement to commit Genocide; crimes against humanity like murder and extermination; and the creation of a criminal gang that killed people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Witnesses claim that the suspect, who was a medical doctor at Butare University Hospital, participated in meetings to prepare mass killings in 1994. Witness accounts indicate that on April 20, 1994, the suspect together with other Interahamwe militias and soldiers, armed with rifles, machetes, clubs and grenades, allegedly rounded up many women and children, who were hiding in sorghum farms, took them to a nearby military camp in Tumba, in former Butare from where they were killed. According to his indictment, it is alleged that Ndindabahizi commanded this group. He is also accused of having acted in cohorts with former Gender Minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko in driving around in a pick-up loaded with condoms which they supplied to militiamen, encouraging them to use while raping Tutsi women and girls. Nyiramasuhuko is currently on trial at the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).Ndindabahizi is also alleged to have murdered eight Tutsi men and women in a church in the Cyarwa neighborhood of Butare. Ends