Key Rwandan genocide suspect arrested in Uganda

A Rwandan former intelligence officer, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, suspected of playing a key role in the 1994 genocide, has been arrested in the Ugandan capital Kampala, sources said on Tuesday.

Elly Womanya, deputy director of Interpol Uganda, told Agence France-Presse that Nizeyimana was arrested on Monday morning in a guesthouse in downtown Kampala following a tipoff.

Interpol, the Ugandan authorities and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda worked together on the arrest, he said.

The capture was confirmed by Ugandan army spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Kulayigye and by a diplomat at the Rwandan embassy in Kampala.

“Idelphonse Nizeyimana has been arrested,” Kulayigye told Agence France-Presse.

Nizeyimana, nick-named the Butcher of Butare, was born in Gisenyi in northwestern Rwanda, and was serving as an intelligence officer in the Rwandan army in the southern town of Butare at the time of the genocide.

He is wanted for genocide, complicity to commit genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Nizeyimana is accused of having been one of the two leading organisers of the genocide in Butare, a university town.

He is on the wanted list of the ICTR and on a United States list of Rwandan genocide suspects for whose capture a reward of $5 000 is offered.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide left an estimated 800 000 people, essentially Tutsis, dead in the space of 100 days.—AFP