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Friday, September 17, 2010

Spanish court request the extradition of Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa


The South African government will consider a request for the extradition of a Rwanda general who fell out with Paul Kagame, Rwanda's dictator, to answer genocide charges in Spain.

Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former Rwanda chief of military staff and later ambassador to India was one of several Rwanda army commanders indicted for several counts of genocide and human rights abuses by a Spanish judge in 2008.

Four Spanish nationals were killed in Rwanda after the turmoil unleashed in 1994 following the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana. The Spanish court tied the now ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to the killings of the Spanish nationals.

Other top Rwanda officers indicted by the Spanish court include General James Kabarebe--for a total of 40 top Rwanda officers.
Gen. Kagame, a sitting president, was not indicted.

Kagame however was indicted, separately by Jean-Louis Bruguière a French prosecutor earlier, in 2006 for the assassination of Habyarimana. French nationals operated Habyarimana's presidential plane, which the French judge said was brought down with missiles by Kagame's RPF.


Gen. Nyamwasa had a falling out with Gen. Kagame earlier this year and fled to South Africa in February. He later survived an assasination attempt and his wife claimed Gen. Kagame's government was behind the botched hit. After he survived being shot as he pulled into his home in a car,South African intelligence agents captured another hit squad that was on its way to finish off Nyamwasa on his hospital bed.

Observers believe that Nyamwasa could provide information damaging to Gen. Kagame.

Rwanda's Kagame has been on the defensive since returning to office in widely discredited elections in August. Several candidates were murdered, prevented from registering or placed under house arrest in the run-up to the voting.

The United Nations is also set to publish a report in October detailing acts of genocide by Kagame's army when it pursued
 
Hutu refugees into Congo after the 1994 upheaval, when the RPF seized power



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