“Modeste Kennedy Hakizimana, 41, is alleged by the UK Border Agency's War Crimes Unit to have helped Hutu soldiers kill members of the Tutsi ethnic group during the genocide in 1994,” the website of the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.
Reacting to the article, Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said “there is not just one case. There are four cases of people who were arrested and released. There are more fugitives who have not been mentioned yet to the opinion.”
But, according to Ngoga, the Crown Prosecution was well aware of these cases. “Not withstanding what the Crown Prosecution has been trying to do, we are deeply disappointed by the way this question of fugitives has been attended to in the UK,” he explained.
Ngoga added, “The attention attached to this matter does not match the gravity of the charges against them. There is some level of indifference. This is unacceptable.”
It is reported that Hakizimana has been living in Britain for the past 13 years and now works as a mini-cab driver in Redbridge, East London. He arrived in Britain in 1999.
The suspect sought asylum, but his application was turned down. An immigration tribunal has since ruled he does not qualify for refugee or humanitarian protection in Britain because he is suspected of crimes against humanity in Rwanda.
But he has been allowed to remain because of a precedent set in the High Court which let four suspected Rwandan war criminals stay in Britain on the basis that they may not get a fair trial in their home country, breaching their human rights.
Hakizimana, the Mail Online website reports, is a Hutu from a village in north Rwanda, where former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana came from.
He is brother of Major Thaddee Bagaragaza, a member of the Presidential Guard who died alongside President Habyarimana when their plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, sparking the genocide.
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