Rwandan Arrested
December 23, 2008
The 51-year-old Hutu man, Onesphore Rwabukombe, was arrested in the Frankfurt area on Monday, one month after Rwanda's own attempts to obtain his extradition from Germany collapsed.
He is suspected of either overseeing or calling for multiple murders in both 1990 and 1994.
"In particular, he is accused of involvement in a massacre at Nyarubuye in mid-April 1994 in the course of which several thousand people were killed," said a statement in Karlsruhe, where the federal prosecutors are based.
The prosecutors said the separate German inquiry began in March this year after Rwanda had requested his arrest in Germany. He was initially detained on April 23 in Frankfurt but released November 3 after German judges ruled against his extradition, citing a ruling by the International Tribunal on Rwanda which is based in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.
German law allows trials for crimes abroad provided the accused is a German resident or the victims are German.
Second arrest in as many months
Last month, a senior Tutsi politician, Rose Kabuye, was arrested on a French warrant after landing in Germany. Though she was later extradited to France, the arrest has strained ties between Kigali and Berlin.
Rwanda strongly condemned the move, arguing that Kabuye was on official state business and therefore merited diplomatic immunity. The country expelled the German ambassador and recalled its envoy from Berlin.
Kabuye was accused of being an accessory in the assassination of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994, an event that is blamed for triggering the genocide of 800,000 people.
It has been debated whether Tutsi rebels shot down the plane or Hutu militants stage-managed the assassination as a provocation.
Kabuye's arrest has likewise worsened the relationship between Kigali and Paris. News reports in Paris Tuesday said she has been freed on bail and was allowed to fly home to Rwanda for Christmas, but is required to reappear before a judge in France on January 10.