Genocide suspect works as taxi driver in Britain

A suspected war criminal accused of playing a role in the slaughter of nearly a million Rwandans is working as a taxi driver in Britain and cannot be deported because of human rights laws.Modeste Kennedy Hakizimana, 41, is alleged by the UK Border Agency’s War Crimes Unit to have helped Hutu soldiers kill members of the Tutsi ethnic group during the genocide in 1994.As a prominent member of the ruling party which is accused of planning the genocide in the central African country, he is also alleged to have made speeches in favour of the massacre.But for the past 13 years Hakizimana has been living in Britain and now works as a mini-cab driver in Redbridge, East London.Hakizimana arrived in Britain in 1999. He sought asylum, but his application was turned down. An immigration tribunal has since ruled he does not qualify for refuge or humanitarian protection in Britain because he is suspected of crimes against humanity in Rwanda.But he has been allowed to remain because of a precedent set in the High Court which let four suspected Rwandan war criminals stay in Britain on the basis that they would not get a fair trial in their home country, breaching their human rights.When The Mail on Sunday approached Hakizimana last week in the car park of a hotel in Redbridge to ask him about the allegations, he denied any involvement in the genocide and flew into a rage.He refused to answer further questions and then called police and falsely accused the reporter of racially assaulting him and spitting on him. Officers questioned him and the reporter – then issued Hakizimana with an £80 spot fine for wasting police time.The genocide in Rwanda began after a plane carrying the President Juvenal Habyarimana, leader of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) party, was shot down in April 1994. The MRND government blamed Tutsi rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and this sparked the massacre of almost a million Tutsis.Hakizimana hails from the village of Rambura in northern Rwanda, the same village as Habyarimana.Hakizimana’s brother Major Thaddee Bagaragaza was chief of the Presidential Guard to Habyarimana and also died when their plane was shot down.The immigration tribunal heard that while studying biology and chemistry at the National University of Rwanda from 1992-94, Hakizimana was leader of the Butare campus MRND party.In 1999 Hakizimana fled Rwanda – leaving behind his wife and child – and came to Britain. The tribunal was told that since arriving, Hakizimana had fathered a boy to a Kenyan nurse but they broke up because she claimed he was aggressive. It is understood he lived in a council house near Romford, Essex, but has now moved.Hakizimana had his first asylum application refused by the Home Office in 1999 but in 2002 he was granted exceptional leave to remain.When it was due to expire at the end of 2005, he claimed indefinite leave to remain but the Home Office rejected this in April 2009 because it believes he is a war criminal.This decision was based on a report by the UK Border Agency’s War Crimes Unit which said ‘there are serious reasons for considering the subject committed, aided, abetted or otherwise assisted in the commission of crimes against humanity and/or genocide’.In August 2009, following the High Court ruling, that year on the four suspected Rwandan war criminals, the Home Office granted Hakizimana discretionary leave to remain.But he appealed against the Home Office’s decision not to grant him indefinite leave to remain and the case was heard at the immigration tribunal in July 2010, where a judge dismissed his asylum claim but granted him humanitarian protection.The Home Office challenged this ruling and a hearing at the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber found in its favour.The tribunal heard that in the first week of May 1994 – during the genocide – Hakizimana travelled from his home in Rambura to the Butare campus. He claims it was to collect his books and studying material, but the Home Office alleges he returned to help identify Tutsis to the soldiers.The Home Office claimed that as the leader of the student MRND party he had admitted possessing a list of Hutu students which could have been used to identify Tutsi students for killing.The Home Office believed it was ‘neither plausible nor credible’ that he had returned to collect his books and ‘was much more likely that [he] had returned to participate in the genocide and had done so’.In ruling that he did not qualify for humanitarian protection, the immigration judges said: ‘The claimant may not have killed anyone himself, but his hands are not clean - he did know both what was planned, what was happening, and was complicit in it.’At the weekend Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover and Deal, who has tabled a Bill to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, said: ‘It’s extraordinary that someone suspected of genocide should be driving a taxi. They should be before a court facing charges.‘Anyone suspected of serious crimes like genocide should face justice and the Human Rights Act should not obstruct the proper course of justice.’ Alp Mehmet, vice-chairman of the Migrationwatch UK think- tank, said: ‘For reasons that will baffle most British people we cannot send him back to Rwanda. This cannot be right.’The UK Border Agency said: ‘Anyone accused of war crimes should be put on trial in their home country and even when the courts rule against us, we keep these cases under constant review. Meanwhile we impose stringent reporting and employment restrictions. We will not allow the UK to become a refuge for war criminals.’ After speaking to our reporter, Hakizimana emailed The Mail on Sunday and again complained he was racially abused and spat on, and claimed publication of the story would breach his human rights.He wrote: ‘I entirely refute any allegation that I was involved in the commission of genocide in Rwanda and indeed any such related allegation.’The Mail on Sunday left a message with Hakizimana’s immigration solicitors but they failed to respond. Sunday Mail