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| Rwanda complains after spy chief is held in London over alleged war crimes | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Rwanda’s foreign minister has criticised the arrest of the country’s intelligence chief in London by British police acting on behalf of authorities in Spain. | Rwanda’s foreign minister has criticised the arrest of the country’s intelligence chief in London by British police acting on behalf of authorities in Spain. |
| Louise Mushikiwabo said on Twitter that the incident was an outrage and that “western solidarity in demeaning Africans is unacceptable”. | |
| Rwanda said it had sought an explanation from London following the arrest of Karenzi Karake, according to reports in Kigali. | |
| “We are handling the matter with the UK government. They have better details on this evolving situation,” said the justice minister, Johnston Busingye, according to Rwanda’s New Times newspaper. | |
| Karake had been on official duty in London for a week, the report added. The director general of Rwanda’s national intelligence and security services was prevented from leaving the country on Saturday morning by the Metropolitan police extradition unit. | |
| A police spokesman said he was wanted in Spain in connection with war crimes against civilians. He was remanded in custody and will reappear in court on Thursday. | A police spokesman said he was wanted in Spain in connection with war crimes against civilians. He was remanded in custody and will reappear in court on Thursday. |
| Busingye was dismissive of the legal basis of the warrant. “I would be surprised if it is one the UK is acting on. We will contest in the courts. We have sought explanation from the UK on this matter as well,” he said. | Busingye was dismissive of the legal basis of the warrant. “I would be surprised if it is one the UK is acting on. We will contest in the courts. We have sought explanation from the UK on this matter as well,” he said. |
| A Spanish judge indicted Karake in 2008 for alleged retributory war crimes in the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He is accused of ordering massacres while head of Rwanda’s military intelligence between 1994 and 1997, and ordering the killing of three Spanish nationals working for the NGO Médicos del Mundo. They were allegedly murdered by four Tutsi soldiers in 1997 after they had been taken to see the mass graves of murdered Hutus. Karake is one of 40 current or former Rwandan military officials named on the indictment. | |
| Karake is a leading member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the ruling party of Rwanda, and fought in the civil war that preceded the genocide in which 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus were killed. | Karake is a leading member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the ruling party of Rwanda, and fought in the civil war that preceded the genocide in which 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus were killed. |
| He was previously the deputy commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan, a role he left in 2009. Humanitarian campaigners Human Rights Watch had protested against his appointment, accusing him of orchestrating deadly attacks against civilians when Rwandan forces were fighting Uganda in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2000. | He was previously the deputy commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan, a role he left in 2009. Humanitarian campaigners Human Rights Watch had protested against his appointment, accusing him of orchestrating deadly attacks against civilians when Rwandan forces were fighting Uganda in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2000. |
| Williams Nkurunziza, Rwanda’s high commissioner to the UK, told the BBC World Service the arrest was an insult. “We take strong exception to the suggestion that he’s being arrested on war crimes,” he said. “Any suggestion that any of our 40 leaders are guilty of crimes against humanity is an insult to our collective conscience.” | |
| Jordi Palou-Loverdos, a lawyer representing nine Spanish massacre victims, told BBC’s Newsnight: “We hope in the name of the victims that this time justice will be provided and Karenzi Karake will soon be delivered to the Spanish court to have a fair trial, where he can defend himself. And we hope that political or other interests will not neutralise the place for justice, truth and reparation.” | Jordi Palou-Loverdos, a lawyer representing nine Spanish massacre victims, told BBC’s Newsnight: “We hope in the name of the victims that this time justice will be provided and Karenzi Karake will soon be delivered to the Spanish court to have a fair trial, where he can defend himself. And we hope that political or other interests will not neutralise the place for justice, truth and reparation.” |
| The Spanish link | |
| Karake stands accused of ordering the killing of three Spaniards – Flors Sirera, Manuel Madrazo and Luis Valtueña – in 1997. All three were members of the NGO Médicos del Mundo, and were allegedly murdered by four Tutsi soldiers after they had been taken to see the mass graves of murdered Hutus. A former member of Karake’s intelligence unit testified to Spanish judge Fernando Andreu that Karake had ordered the killings because “these whites had sensitive information about the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s recent massacres”. In 2008 Andreu brought a case against Karake and 39 other military officials. | |
| Spain’s ability to pursue Karake may be hobbled by a law passed by the ruling conservative government last year that severely limits judges’ ability to prosecute crimes that occur outside Spain under a system known as universal justice. The concept of universal justice is rooted in the 1949 Geneva convention and compels any signatory to provide effective sanctions against those accused of breaching the convention. | |
| Spain took the lead in applying universal justice after the concept was integrated into the Spanish judicial system in 1985, most famously with the arrest and attempted extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1988. | |
| The government introduced reforms to the system last year, apparently to avoid conflict with China, which had been indicted over human rights abuses in Tibet. A government spokesman said universal jurisdiction had to be abolished because “it only causes conflict”. A spokesman for Amnesty International in Spain described the reform as “a backward step” for human rights. | |
| Not long after the law was introduced a number of international drug barons jailed in Spain successfully sued for their release, claiming that Spain had broken its own laws by acting outside its jurisdiction. | |
| However, the chances of prosecuting Karake would be much greater were he extradited and made to stand trial on Spanish soil, legal experts say. | |
| Four other Spaniards – Joaquim Valmajó, Servando García, Fernando de la Fuente and Isidro Uzkudun, all priests – were tortured and murdered by RPF members. The dismembered bodies of Valmajó and García were thrown into a well. | |
| Stephen Burgen in Barcelona |