Rwanda welcomes Denmark Genocide extradition ruling

THE GOVERNMENT has described as “a vote of confidence in Rwanda’s judicial system” a decision by a top Danish court to uphold an earlier extradition verdict involving a wanted Genocide suspect.Officials at the National Public Prosecution Authority say that yesterday’s verdict by the Danish Supreme Court means that legal hurdles that Emmanuel Mbarushimana had turned to in a desperate attempt to ward-off extradition had now been exhausted. The suspect has exhausted all means of appeal in Denmark and it is now up to the Danish Ministry of Justice to organise with the Government of Rwanda on when he should be extradited to stand trial in the country where he committed the crimes, Alain Mukuralinda, the NPPA spokesperson, said in a statement yesterday.Mbarushimana, 51, who was arrested in Denmark in 2010 after spending about 10 years hiding in the Scandinavian country, is wanted in connection with the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which claimed at least more than a million people.The former teacher is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, murder and extermination committed in the former Muganza commune, Butare prefecture in the present-day Southern Province. Since his arrest, Mbarushimana has been in and out of court to fight off his extradition to Rwanda. The suspect had pleaded not guilty and claimed he would not receive a fair trial once he is sent to Rwanda. However, reports yesterday indicated that Mbarushimana had appealed the latest extradition ruling in the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. His lawyer Bjoern Elmqvist was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that client had appealed the Supreme Court’s decision to extradite him to Rwanda on the grounds that he won’t get a fair trial in his home country. In 2008 and February 2012, Rwandan authorities asked Copenhagen to either extradite Mbarushimana or prosecute him.The Danish authorities initially opted to try him themselves, but later found they could not press charges of genocide under Danish law. As a result, they indicted him for murder. The country’s law has since been changed to allow acts of genocide committed abroad to be prosecuted in Denmark, but this cannot be applied to Mbarushimana since the law cannot be applied retroactively.According to the Danish murder indictment, Mbarushimana gave orders to kill hundreds of ethnic Tutsi during the Genocide against the Tutsi, nearly 20 years ago.He has fought both the extradition request from Rwanda and the Danish indictment. Since he is now expected to be extradited, the murder case is unlikely to go ahead.If extradited, Mbarushimana will be the second Genocide suspect to be sent to Rwanda from Scandinavian countries after Charles Bandora, who was transferred from Norway in May 2013. Bandora had also appealed his Norwegian extradition ruling in the European Court of Human Rights but lost the case.Mbarushimana is one of the dozens of Genocide fugitives still at large in various parts of the world, who have been indicted by Kigali.Most wanted elite perpetrators are believed to be living in western capitals, notably across France, while many of the militiamen who ran death squads during the Genocide are said to be part of the DRC-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) terror group.