KIGALI, Rwanda
A Rwandan fugitive wanted for allegedly playing a major role in the country’s 1994 genocide has been confirmed dead, a prosecutor with a U.N. - backed tribunal said Thursday.
Protais Mpiranya, “the last of
the major fugitives” indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda, died in 2006 in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe, Serge
Brammertz, chief prosecutor with the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for
Criminal Tribunals, said in a statement.
“For the victims of his
crimes, Mpiranya was a feared and notorious fugitive” as leader of the
presidential guard during the genocide, he said. “Confirming his death provides
the solace of knowing that he cannot cause further harm.”
With the confirmed death of
Mpiranya, there are now only five outstanding fugitives under the tribunal’s
jurisdiction, the statement said.
The announcement in The Hague
followed years of an investigation into the whereabouts of Mpiranya, who eluded
arrest by using aliases.
He had been charged with
multiple counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity
and war crimes.
“Notably, he was charged with
responsibility for the murders of senior moderate Rwandan leaders at the start
of the genocide, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana” and other
national leaders, the statement said.
The mass killing of Rwanda’s
Tutsi population was ignited on April 6, when a plane carrying President
Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down and crashed in Kigali, the capital, killing
the leader who, like most Rwandans, was an ethnic Hutu.
The Tutsi were blamed for
downing the plane, and although they denied it, bands of Hutu extremists began
killing them, including children, with support from the army, police and militias.
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