Exclusive:
Detectives are looking into to possibility of charging Rwandan’s living in the UK with historic offences 30 years on from the massacre of 800,000 in just 100 days
Prosecutors are considering genocide charges against a Rwandan living in the UK 30 years after the atrocity.
Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Team has sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service about one of five men it has been investigating. Police interviewed suspects from Kent, Essex, London and Manchester voluntarily in 2020 and have also been to Rwanda several times during the complex six-year investigation.
They have taken dozens of statements from witnesses to massacres triggered by the assassination of Rwanda’s president in April 1994. About 800,000 people were slaughtered in just 100 days, many with machetes, when extremists from the country’s majority Hutu ethnic group turned on their Tutsi rivals.
Celestin Mutabaruka, 68, who lives in Kent, and Vincent Bajinya, 60, a doctor who changed his name to Brown, both declined to comment when we approached them. Mutabaruka has said he welcomes the chance to clear his name. He added: “I have nothing to hide.”
Speaking at his flat in Islington, North London, Brown said three years ago: “I am not a criminal and I never did those things.” A third suspect is Celestin Ugirashebuja, 70, who was living in Essex. Emmanuel Nteziryayo, 59, a fourth questioned, now lives in Manchester. While a fifth man, Charles Munyaneza, living in Bedford and in his mid-60s, was not quizzed after a stroke.
The men were arrested in 2013 after a Rwandan extradition request but denied genocide. They were named when a judge ruled they should not be extradited as they would not get a fair trial. A sixth man, aged 69, was arrested in Gateshead in January by the War Crimes Team and released on bail. If charged under the War Crimes Act 1991 they would be tried here.
It comes after recent arrests of Rwandans in South Africa and Ohio. The Rwandan High Commissioner in London, Johnston Busingye, said: “Rwandan authorities have co-operated in every way possible with UK counterparts. We understand that it takes time to prepare such cases but after three decades every passing day is one too many.”
Scotland Yard would not say which of the five men arrested now faces possible charges. A spokesman said: “We remain in close liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure investigations are being progressed as expeditiously as possible. One is at an advanced stage, with a file submitted to the CPS in late 2023.”
The Crown Prosecution Service added: “We have received a full file of evidence from the Metropolitan Police in relation to one individual alleged to have committed war crimes in Rwanda. We continue to advise the Metropolitan Police in relation to their investigations involving other individuals.”
