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| Photos of victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide hang in the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda on April 7, 2012. |
Rwanda has sent an extradition request to the Netherlands, asking the Dutch officials to deport a suspected Rwandan national for his role in the African country’s 1994 genocide.
"An extradition request has been filed by Rwanda a short while ago," a Dutch justice official, Wim de Bruin, said on Tuesday.
The 37-year-old man, identified as "Jean-Claude I.", was reportedly a Hutu militia leader during Rwanda’s genocide and responsible for mass murder at a school outside the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
The man was arrested in the Netherlands in July following a Dutch investigation into the mass killing.
He was booked in a suburb of The Hague earlier in 2013 after his refugee status was scrapped in the European state. In March, a local Dutch court also rejected his appeal, describing it as unfounded.
The 37-year-old man, identified as "Jean-Claude I.", was reportedly a Hutu militia leader during Rwanda’s genocide and responsible for mass murder at a school outside the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
The man was arrested in the Netherlands in July following a Dutch investigation into the mass killing.
He was booked in a suburb of The Hague earlier in 2013 after his refugee status was scrapped in the European state. In March, a local Dutch court also rejected his appeal, describing it as unfounded.
"I. is being suspected of being an armed leader of the Interahamwe who participated in attacks on Tutsis," at a school and elsewhere, Dutch prosecutors said in a statement.
On April 11, 1994, about 2,000 people were killed near the ETO school, located on the outskirts of Kigali, after UN peacekeepers left the area.
Some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were killed by the ethnic majority Hutus during the Rwandan genocide, which occurred from April to July 1994.
The genocide occurred after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down on April 6, 1994. It lasted approximately 100 days and hence is called the “100 Days of Hell.”
A Dutch court is expected to consider the extradition request next week.
Under the Dutch law, courts in the country can try foreign suspects for genocide if the crime was committed after October 1970.
However, Dutch prosecutors said they preferred home-based investigations and prosecutions for foreign suspects as "the evidence is there and the participants are well versed in the language, culture and the background to the events."
SAB/PR
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