One of the world’s most wanted genocide suspects, a Rwandan former police chief, Fulgence Kayishema, has been arrested in South Africa and charged with playing a leading role in the murder of more than 2,000 people in a church in April 1994.
Kayishema has spent more than two decades as a fugitive and was living under a false name at the time of his arrest on Wednesday afternoon in Paarl, 35 miles (60km) north-east of Cape Town. He was detained by the South African police and members of a tracking team from the Rwandan war crimes tribunal based in Arusha, Tanzania.
Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor who led the hunt, said: “Fulgence Kayishema was a fugitive for more than 20 years. His arrest ensures that he will finally face justice for his alleged crimes.
“Genocide is the most serious crime known to humankind. The international community has committed to ensure that its perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. This arrest is a tangible demonstration that this commitment does not fade, and that justice will be done, no matter how long it takes.”
Kayishema, 62, was one of four suspects indicted by the tribunal who were still not accounted for, from a total of 96 indicted, and he was possibly the last major suspect still living and at large. The tribunal only indicted the leading perpetrators; there are still more than 1,000 others wanted by Rwandan prosecutors for their alleged roles in the genocide, in which more than half a million people were killed in 100 days.
