US government to try African in Kansas on Rwanda-linked charges
• Lazare Kobagaya faces deportation and 10 years in prison
• Case mirrors that against alleged Nazi guard
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 April 2009 19.24 BST
The United States government has implicated an elderly African man living in Kansas in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and accused him of concealing his role in the killings in order to win US citizenship. The government aims to try him based on evidence and witness statements collected by Finnish investigators in a case against a Rwandan man, according to an indictment newly unsealed in federal court.
Lazare Kobagaya, 82, today appeared in court in Wichita, where his family argued his innocence. He is charged with lying on immigration and citizenship forms, and the US justice department wants to revoke his citizenship. If convicted, Kobagaya faces up to 10 years in prison and deportation from the US.
In 1997 Kobagaya applied for a visa in Kansas, telling immigration officials he had not committed any crimes for which he had not been arrested, and that he was in Burundi from 1993 to 1995, placing himself outside Rwanda during the genocide. Immigration officials granted him the visa and, in 2006, US citizenship.
According to the US indictment, during the violence Kobagaya had in fact been in a Rwandan village, exhorting fellow Hutus to murder and participating in killings himself.
In April 1994, a group of Hutus gathered in a marketplace in the village of Birambo. According to the indictment, Kobagaya urged them to set fire to Tutsi homes and mobilised teams to pursue fleeing Tutsis. Later, Kobagaya urged Hutus to kill Tutsi women who had been spared because they were married to Hutu men, prosecutors wrote. All told, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide.
Kobagaya's family today said he is innocent, contending he was too old and sick to participate in the atrocities. He did not enter a plea at a hearing in Wichita today.
During a break in the hearing, Kobagaya's son Andre Kandy acknowledged his father was in Rwanda during the killings, but as a refugee from neighbouring Burundi. He said his father, whom he said considers himself from Burundi, speaks little English and probably misunderstood immigration officials' questions.
"What they want to do is revoke his citizenship so he can be deported and killed," Kandy told the Associated Press.
The US government's strategy in the case mirrors its prosecution of suspected Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, who settled in Ohio after the second world war. Demjanjuk was not charged with committing a violent crime, but rather with concealing his activities from US immigration officials. Demjanjuk, 89, is currently fighting deportation to Germany.
In the Kobagaya case, American prosecutors plan to use witness statements and evidence collected by the Finnish government against Francois Bazaramba, a Baptist minister accused of leading a massacre of 5,000 Tutsis near the Burundi border.
Bazaramba settled in Finland in 2003, and Finnish investigators have travelled to Rwanda to interview genocide survivors and inspect the scenes of the massacres. The US court requested that Finnish authorities provide documents, photographs, witness statements and other evidence gathered in the Bazaramba case to try Kobagaya.
Kobagaya's family today said that he had given a sworn statement in Bazaramba's defence, and that the Rwandan government was retaliating by falsely accusing him of complicity in the genocide.
European countries have declined Rwandan requests to extradite genocide suspects, for fear they would not receive a fair trial, causing Rwandan officials to complain that genocide suspects live free in Europe and North America while the country struggles to come to grips with its recent history.
Finland said in February it would not extradite Bazaramba. Earlier this month, four Rwandan men suspected of participating in the genocide were freed earlier after a British court blocked an extradition request from the Rwandan government. The men, Hutus who lived in North London, Bedford, Essex and Manchester, were arrested in 2006, and have denied any role in the killings.
Lazare Kobagaya, 82, today appeared in court in Wichita, where his family argued his innocence. He is charged with lying on immigration and citizenship forms, and the US justice department wants to revoke his citizenship. If convicted, Kobagaya faces up to 10 years in prison and deportation from the US.
In 1997 Kobagaya applied for a visa in Kansas, telling immigration officials he had not committed any crimes for which he had not been arrested, and that he was in Burundi from 1993 to 1995, placing himself outside Rwanda during the genocide. Immigration officials granted him the visa and, in 2006, US citizenship.
According to the US indictment, during the violence Kobagaya had in fact been in a Rwandan village, exhorting fellow Hutus to murder and participating in killings himself.
In April 1994, a group of Hutus gathered in a marketplace in the village of Birambo. According to the indictment, Kobagaya urged them to set fire to Tutsi homes and mobilised teams to pursue fleeing Tutsis. Later, Kobagaya urged Hutus to kill Tutsi women who had been spared because they were married to Hutu men, prosecutors wrote. All told, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide.
Kobagaya's family today said he is innocent, contending he was too old and sick to participate in the atrocities. He did not enter a plea at a hearing in Wichita today.
During a break in the hearing, Kobagaya's son Andre Kandy acknowledged his father was in Rwanda during the killings, but as a refugee from neighbouring Burundi. He said his father, whom he said considers himself from Burundi, speaks little English and probably misunderstood immigration officials' questions.
"What they want to do is revoke his citizenship so he can be deported and killed," Kandy told the Associated Press.
The US government's strategy in the case mirrors its prosecution of suspected Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, who settled in Ohio after the second world war. Demjanjuk was not charged with committing a violent crime, but rather with concealing his activities from US immigration officials. Demjanjuk, 89, is currently fighting deportation to Germany.
In the Kobagaya case, American prosecutors plan to use witness statements and evidence collected by the Finnish government against Francois Bazaramba, a Baptist minister accused of leading a massacre of 5,000 Tutsis near the Burundi border.
Bazaramba settled in Finland in 2003, and Finnish investigators have travelled to Rwanda to interview genocide survivors and inspect the scenes of the massacres. The US court requested that Finnish authorities provide documents, photographs, witness statements and other evidence gathered in the Bazaramba case to try Kobagaya.
Kobagaya's family today said that he had given a sworn statement in Bazaramba's defence, and that the Rwandan government was retaliating by falsely accusing him of complicity in the genocide.
European countries have declined Rwandan requests to extradite genocide suspects, for fear they would not receive a fair trial, causing Rwandan officials to complain that genocide suspects live free in Europe and North America while the country struggles to come to grips with its recent history.
Finland said in February it would not extradite Bazaramba. Earlier this month, four Rwandan men suspected of participating in the genocide were freed earlier after a British court blocked an extradition request from the Rwandan government. The men, Hutus who lived in North London, Bedford, Essex and Manchester, were arrested in 2006, and have denied any role in the killings.
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